dubiety can sway them. I had been in so many minds about this thirty
pound bet, which I could not really afford, that there was therefore
nothing for it, after waiting the two minutes that seemed to be ten,
but to tear up the message, in the belief that the friendly gods again
had intervened. For luck is as much an affair of refraining as of
rushing in.

I therefore withdrew quietly from the conversation and scattered the
little bits on the floor as I did so. But I did not leave the office.
Instead, I went to the side desk again and wrote another telegram,
which, with the necessary money (an awful lot), I pushed through the
grating, where the girls were still talking. My second telegram had
no reference to horses--I had done with gambling for the day--but ran
thus:--

Postmaster-General, London.

Suggest you remind telegraph clerk on duty at this hour at this
post-office that she perhaps talks a shade too much about Herne
Bay and gives public too little consideration.

The girl, having ceased her chatter, took the telegram and began
feverishly to count the words. Then her tapping pencil slowed down and
her brows contracted; she was assimilating their meaning. Then, with a
blush, and a very becoming one, she looked at me with an expression of
distress and said, "Do you really want this to go?"

"No," I said, withdrawing the money.

"I'm sorry I was not more attentive," she said.