Edgar Wallace

“ The old man had a trick of striking off at a tangent; from one subject to another he leapt like a will-o’-the-wisp. Before Horace had framed half a dozen words the old man was dragging his unwilling victim along a piscatorial road, and Sir Isaac was floundering out of his depths in a morass—if the metaphor be excused—of salmon-fishing, trout-poaching, pike-fishing—a sport on which Sir Isaac Tramber could by no means deem himself an authority. ”

“ That is part of the game; the form of horses is not half as inconsistent as the form of owners. I shall probably meet a man this morning who will tell me that some horse is an absolute certainty for the last race of the day. He will hold me by the buttonhole and he will drum into me the fact that this is the most extraordinarily easy method of picking up money that was ever invented since racing started. When I meet him after the last race he will coolly inform me that he did not back that horse, but had some tip at the last moment from an obscure individual who knew the owner’s aunt’s sister. ”

“ Sir Isaac was fuming.
“I don’t want him in here,” he said loudly. “You seem to forget, Verlond, that if you want to talk about horses, this is the very chap who should know nothing about Timbolino.”
“Ach!” said the earl testily, “don’t you suppose he knows all there is to be known. What do you think sporting papers are for?”
“Sporting papers can’t tell a man what the owner knows,” said Sir Isaac importantly.
“They tell me more than he knows,” he said. “Your horse was favourite yesterday morning—it isn’t favourite any more, Ikey.” ”