TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

this he settled himself in his chair, lit his pipe, and
applied his mind to the Racing Intelligence in The
Sportsman with an air of having settled the matter
once and for all. The sort of horse he had described
was the sort of horse everyone in the Ringwell country
wanted; but Denis was never afraid of uttering an
honest unvarnished exactitude.

I suggested that such a horse might cost more
money than I could conveniently afford,

"Put a fiver on Michaelmas Daisy for the Cam-
bridgeshire. She's at 100 to 8. Pm having a tenner
on each way myself," he replied, without turning his
head.

Although I'd never had more than half a sovereign
on a horse in my life, and that was only at point-to-
points, I risked two pounds ten shillings each way,
and Michaelmas Daisy did it by half a length.

Soon afterwards Denis took me to see a dealer on
the other side of the country, and there we found the
very horse I wanted. The dealer (an amusing Irish-
man whose deportment I must for once decline to
describe) was anxious to oblige the M.F.H. and
knocked ten pounds off the price. Sunny Jirn was
mine for ninety pounds. He was a short-tailed corky-
looking bay with a habit of grinding his teeth as he
jogged along the roads. And that is really all I
intend to say about him, except that he was well
worth the money and approved of by Dixon as a real
old-fashioned sort. I could just manage fifty pounds
out of my own money, so my fortuitous forty pounds
saved the situation. Harkaway was now transferred
to Aunt Evelyn's dogcart, where he conducted him-
self with dignity and decorum.

The opening meet, therefore, found me prosperous
and complacent, exhibiting my new horse to the

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