If it were Ginger, Mr. Leopold would say, "Can I do anything for you, Mr.
Arthur?"

"Oh, nothing, thank you; I only thought that----" and Ginger would invent
some paltry excuse and slink away to smoke elsewhere.

Every day, a little before twelve, Mr. Leopold went out for his morning
walk; every day if it were fine you would meet him at that hour in the
lane either coming from or going to Shoreham. For thirty years he had done
his little constitutional, always taking the same road, always starting
within a few minutes of twelve, always returning in time to lay the cloth
for lunch at half-past one. The hour between twelve and one he spent in
the little cottage which he rented from the squire for his wife and
children, or in the "Red Lion," where he had a glass of beer and talked
with Watkins, the bookmaker.

"There he goes, off to the 'Red Lion,'" said Mrs. Latch. "They try to get
some information out of him, but he's too sharp for them, and he knows it;
that's what he goes there for--just for the pleasure of seeing them
swallow the lies he tells them.... He has been telling them lies about the
horses for the last twenty years, and still he get them to believe what he
says. It is a cruel shame! It was the lies he told poor Jackson about Blue
Beard that made the poor man back the horse for all he was worth."

"And the horse didn't win?"

"Win! The master didn't even intend to run him, and Jackson lost all he
had, and more. He went down to the river and drowned himself. John Randal
has that man's death on his conscience. But his conscience don't trouble
him much; if it did he'd be in his grave long ago. Lies, lies, nothing but