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“Master Paul!” he whispered.”Master Paul! Malabar came in first all right, a clean win. I did as you told me. You’ve made over seventy thousand pounds, you have; you’ve got over eighty thousand. Malabar came in all right, Master Paul.”

“Malabar! Malabar! Did I say Malabar, Mother? Did I say Malabar? Do you think I’m lucky, Mother? I knew Malabar, didn’t I? Over eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don’t you, Mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I knew, didn’t I know I knew? Malabar came in all right. If I ride my horse till I’m sure, then I tell you, Bassett, you can go as high as you like. Did you go for all you were worth, Bassett?”

“I went a thousand on it, Master Paul.”

“I never told you, Mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there,then I’m absolutely sure—oh, absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I amlucky!”

“No, you never did,” said the mother.

But the boy died in the night.

And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother’s voice saying to her: “My God, Hester, you’re eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he’s best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner.”