The Leger this year was to be run on the 14th September, and while Lord Silverbridge was amusing himself with the deer at Crummie-Toddie and at Killancodlem with the more easily pursued young ladies, the indefatigable¹ Major was hard at work in the stables. This came a little hard on him. There was the cub-hunting to be looked after, which made his presence at Runnymede necessary, and then that "pig-headed fellow, Silverbridge" would not have the horses trained anywhere but at Newmarket. How was he to be in two places at once? Yet he was in two places almost at once: cub-hunting in the morning at Egham and Bagshot, and sitting on the same evening at the stable-door at Newmarket, with his eyes fixed² upon Prime Minister.

Gradually had he and Captain Green come to understand each other, and though they did at last understand each other, Tifto would talk as though there were no such correct intelligence;—when for instance he would abuse Lord Silverbridge for being pig-headed. On such occasions the Captain's remark would generally be short. "That be blowed!" he would say, implying that that state of things between the two partners, in which such complaints might be natural, had now been brought to an end. But on one occasion, about a week before the race, he spoke³ out a little plainer. "What's the use of your going on with all that before me? It's settled what you've got to do."

"I don't know that anything is settled," said the Major.

"Ain't it? I thought it was. If it ain't you'll find yourself in the wrong box. You've as straight a tip as a man need wish for, but if you back out you'll come to grief. Your money's all on the other way already."

On the Friday before the race Silverbridge dined with Tifto at the Beargarden. On the next morning they went down to Newmarket to see the horse get a gallop⁴, and came back the same evening. During all this time, Tifto was more than ordinarily pleasant to his patron. The horse and the certainty of the horse's success were the only subjects mooted⁵. "It isn't what I say," repeated Tifto, "but look at the betting. You can't get five to four against him. They tell me that if you want to do anything on the Sunday the pull will be the other way."

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