There is no sense of happy medium about the hero of the popular
novel. He cannot get astride a horse without its going off and
winning a steeplechase against the favourite. The crowd in Novel-
land appears to have no power of observation. It worries itself
about the odds, discusses records, reads the nonsense published by
the sporting papers. Were I to find myself on a racecourse in Novel-
land I should not trouble about the unessential; I should go up to
the bookie who looked as if he had the most money, and should say to
him:

"Don't shout so loud; you are making yourself hoarse. Just listen to
me. Who's the hero of this novel? Oh, that's he, is it? The heavy-
looking man on the little brown horse that keeps coughing and is
suffering apparently from bone spavin? Well, what are the odds
against his winning by ten lengths? A thousand to one! Very well!
Have you got a bag?--Good. Here's twenty-seven pounds in gold and
eighteen shillings in silver. Coat and waistcoat, say another ten
shillings. Shirt and trousers--it's all right, I've got my pyjamas
on underneath--say seven and six. Boots--we won't quarrel--make it
five bob. That's twenty-nine pounds and sixpence, isn't it? In
addition here's a mortgage on the family estate, which I've had made
out in blank, an I O U for fourteen pounds which has been owing to me
now for some time, and this bundle of securities which, strictly
speaking, belong to my Aunt Jane. You keep that little lot till
after the race, and we will call it in round figures, five hundred
pounds."

That single afternoon would thus bring me in five hundred thousand
pounds--provided the bookie did not blow his brains out.