The inimitable Jeeves

story, wretched boy! I have warned you before, and now the time has come to act. You cease from this moment to be a member of my choir. Go, miserable child!’
    Steggles plucked at my sleeve.
    ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘those bets, you know - I’m afraid you lose your money, dear old boy. It’s a pity you didn’t put it on SP. I always think SP’s the only safe way.’
    I gave him one look. Not a bit of good, of course.
    ‘And they talk about the Purity of the Turf!’ I said. And I meant it to sting, by Jove!

    Jeeves received the news bravely, but I think the man was a bit rattled beneath the surface.
    ‘An ingenious young gentleman, Mr Steggles, sir.’
    ‘A bally swindler, you mean.’
    ‘Perhaps that would be a more exact description. However, these things will happen on the Turf, and it is useless to complain.’
    ‘I wish I had your sunny disposition, Jeeves!’
    Jeeves bowed.
    ‘We now rely, then, it would seem, sir, almost entirely on Mrs Penworthy. Should she justify Mr Little’s encomiums and show real class in the Mothers’ Sack Race, our gains will just balance our losses.’
    ‘Yes; but that’s not much consolation when you’ve been looking forward to a big win.’
    ‘It is just possible that we may still find ourselves on the right side of the ledger after all, sir. Before Mr Little left, I persuaded him to invest a small sum for the syndicate of which you were kind enough to make me a member, sir, on the Girls’ Egg and Spoon Race.’
    ‘On Sarah Mills?’
    ‘No, sir. On a long-priced outsider. Little Prudence Baxter, sir, the child of his lordship’s head gardener. Her father assures me she has a very steady hand. She is accustomed to bring him a mug of beer from the cottage each afternoon, and he informs me she has never spilled a drop.’
    Well, that sounded as though young Prudence’s control was good. But how about speed? With seasoned performers like Sarah Mills entered, the thing practically amounted to a classic race, and in these big events you must have speed.
    ‘I am aware that it is what is termed a long shot,’ sir. Still, I thought it judicious.’
    ‘You backed here for a place, too, of course?’
    ‘Yes, sir. Each way.’
    ‘Well, I suppose it’s all right. I’ve never known you make a bloomer yet.’
    ‘Thank you very much, sir.’

    I’m bound to say that, as a general rule, my idea of a large afternoon would be to keep as far away from a village school-treat as possible. A sticky business. But with such grave issues toward, if you know what I mean, I sank my prejudices on this occasion and rolled up. I found the proceedings about as scaly as I had expected. It was a warm day, and the hall grounds were a dense, practically liquid mass of peasantry. Kids seethed to and fro. One of them, a small girl of sorts, grabbed my hand and hung on to it as I clove my way through the jam to where the Mothers’ Sack Race was to finish. We hadn’t been introduced, but she seemed to think I would do as well as anyone else to talk to about the rag-doll she had won in the Lucky Dip, and she rather spread herself on the topic.
    ‘I’m going to call it Gertrude,’ she said. ‘And I shall undress it every night and put it to bed, and wake it up in the morning and dress it, and put it to bed at night, and wake it up next morning and dress it -‘
    ‘I say, old thing,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to hurry you and all that, but you couldn’t condense it a bit, could you? I’m rather anxious to see the finish of this race. The Wooster fortunes are by way of hanging on it.’
    ‘I’m going to run in a race soon,’ she said, shelving the doll for the nonce and descending to ordinary chit-chat.
    ‘Yes?’ I said. Distrait, if you know what I mean, and trying to peer through the chinks in the crowd. ‘What race is that?’
    ‘Egg ‘n’ Spoon.’
    ‘No really? Are you Sarah Mills?’
    ‘Na-ow!’ Registering scorn. ‘I’m Prudence Baxter.’
    Naturally this put our relations on a different footing. I gazed at her with considerable interest. One of the stable. I must say she didn’t look much of a flier. She was short and round. Bit out of condition, I thought.
    ‘I say,’ I said, ‘that being so, you mustn’t dash about in the hot sun and take the edge off yourself. You must conserve your energies, old friend. Sit down here in the shade.’
    ‘Don’t want to sit down.’
    ‘Well, take it easy, anyhow.’
    The kid flitted to another topic like a