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till it was perfectly convenient to him -- a favour that Jack was pretty sure to accord him -- Mr Viney took his departure, Jack undertaking to write him the result. The next days post brought Viney the document -- unpaid, of course -- with a great Scamperdale scrawled across the top; and forthwith it was decided that the steeplechase should be called the Grand Aristocratic. Other names quickly followed, and it soon assumed an importance. Advertisements appeared in all the sporting and would-be sporting papers, headed with the imposing names of the stewards, secretary, and clerk of the course, Mr Viney. The Grand Aristocratic Stakes, of 20 sovs. each, half-forfeit, and £5 only if declared, &c. The winner to give two dozen of champagne to the ordinary, and the second horse to save his stake. Gentlemen riders (titled ones to be allowed 3 lbs.). Over about three miles of fine hunting country, under the usual steeplechase conditions. Then the game of the Peeping Toms, and Sly Sams, and Infallible Joes, and Wide-awake Jems, with their tips and distribution of prints began; Tom counselling his numerous and daily increasing clients to get well on to No. 9, Sardanapalus (the Bart., as Watchorn called him), while Infallible Joe recommended his friends and patrons to be sweet on No. 6 (Hercules), and Wide-awake Jem was all for something else. A gentleman who took the trouble of getting tips from half a dozen of them, found that no two of them agreed in any particular. What information to make books upon! But what good, as our excellent friend Thackeray eloquently asks, ever came out of, or went into, a betting book? If I could be Caliph Omar for a week, says he, I would pitch every one of those despicable manuscripts into the flames; from my-lords, who is in with Jack Snaffles stable, and is overreaching worse-informed rogues, and swindling green-horns, down to Sams, the butchers boy, who books eighteen- penny odds in the tap-room, and stands to win five-and-twenty bob. We say ditto to that, and are not sure that we wouldnt hang a leg or a list man or two into the bargain. Watchorn had a prophet of his own, one Enoch Wriggle, who, having tried his hand unsuccessfully first at tailoring, next as an accountant, then in the watercress, afterwards in the buy at-box, bonnet-box, and lastly in the stale lobster and periwinkle line, had set up as an oracle on turf matters, forwarding the most accurate and infallible information to flats in exchange for half-crowns, heading his advertisements, If it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive! Enoch did a considerable stroke of business, and couched his advice in such dubious terms, as generally to be able to claim a victory whichever way the thing went. So the offending soul prospered; and from scarcely having shoes to his feet, he very soon set up a gig. |
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