Foe-Farrell | Page 8

St. Amant is firm as a rock." "How the
devil--" I began. "That's a fine horse, too, over yonder," he said,
pointing one out with his umbrella. "John o' Gaunt," said I: "ran second
to St. Amant for the Guineas, and second to Henry the First in the
Newmarket, with St. Amant third. The running has been all in-and-out
this season. But how the devil you spotted him, when I didn't know you
could tell a horse's head from his stern--" "I don't profess to much
more," said Foe; "but it's my job to read an animal's eye, and what he's
fit for by the quiver under his skin. Now, I'd only a glimpse of St.
Amant's eye, across his blinkers, and your John o' Gaunt is a stout
one--inclined, you tell me, to run in second place. But if your money's
on Gouvernant, hurry while there's time and set it right. If you've thirty
seconds to spare when you've done that," he added, "you may put up a
tenner for me on St. Amant--but don't bother. Your book may want
some arranging."
The way he said it impressed me, and I fairly shinned back to the Ring.
I hadn't made my book on any reasoned conviction, you understand; for
the horses had been playing at cat's-cradle all along, and as I went it
broke on me that, after all, my faith in Gouvernant mainly rested on my
knowing less of him than of the others--that I was really going with the
crowd. But really I was running to back a superstition--my belief in Foe,
who knew nothing about horse-racing and cared less.
Well, the race was run that year in a thunderstorm--a drencher; and if
Foe was right, I guess that finished Gouvernant, who never looked like
a winner. St. Amant romped home, with John o' Gaunt second, in the

place he could be trusted for. Thanks to Foe I had saved myself more
than a pony in three strenuous minutes, and he pocketed his few
sovereigns and smiled.
That was also the day--June 1st, 1904--"Glorious First of June" as
Jimmy Collingwood called it--that Foe first made Jimmy's
acquaintance. Young Collingwood was a neighbour of mine, down in
the country; an artless, irresponsible, engaging youth, of powerful build
and as pretty an oarsman and as neat a waterman as you could watch.
Eton and B.N.C. Oxford were his nursing mothers. His friends
(including the dons) at this latter house of learning knew him as the
Malefactor; it being a tradition that he poisoned an aunt or a
grandparent annually, towards the close of May. He was attending the
obsequies of one that afternoon on the edge of the hill, in a hansom,
with a plate of foie gras on his knees and a bottle of champagne
between his ankles. His cabby reclined on the turf with a bottle of Bass
and the remains of a pigeon pie. His horse had its head in a nose-bag.
"Hallo, Jimmy!" I hailed, pausing before the pastoral scene. "Funeral
bake-meats?"
"Hallo!" Jimmy answered, and shook his head very solemnly.
"Sister-in-law this time. It had to be."
"Sister-in-law! Why you haven't one!"
"Course not," said Jimmy. "That's the whole trouble. Ain't I breaking it
to you gently? . . . Case of angina pectoris, if you know what that
means. It sounds like a pick-me-up--'try Angostura bitters to keep up
your Pecker.' But it isn't. Angina--short 'i'; I know because I tried it on
the Dean with a long one and he corrected me. He said that angina
might be forgiven, for once, in a young man bereaved and labouring
under strong emotion, but that if I apprehended its running in the
family I had better get the quantity right. He also remarked rather
pointedly that he hoped his memory was at fault and that my poor
brother hadn't really lost his deceased wife's sister."
"Do you know where bad boys go?" I asked him.

"Silly question," said Jimmy, with his mouth full of foie gras. "Why, to
the Derby, of course. Have something to eat."
I told him that we had lunched, introduced him to Foe as the Malefactor,
and invited him to come back and dine with us at Prince's before
catching the late train for Oxford. He answered that fate always smiled
on him at these funerals, paid off his cabby, and joined us.
Our dinner that evening was a brilliant success; and we left it to drive
to Paddington to see the boy off. He had dropped a few pounds over the
Derby but made the most of it up by a plunge on the last race: "and
what with your standing me a dinner, I'm all up on the day's working
and that cheerful I could kiss the guard." He wasn't