Sir, between
you and me, IT IS RAPIDLY GETTING NO BETTER. Here is Lord -- (than
whom a more sterling sportsman) as good as saying to Sir -- (than
whom, perhaps), "Did you ever hear of a sporting character called
Swindells?" And the Prophet HAVE been told that it may furnish
matter for the gentlemen of the long robe--which, in my time, many
of them was backers of horses.
And all along of what? Why, of the "inexplicable in-and-out
running of horses," as the "Standard" says, and as will often
happen, you, perhaps, having a likely dark one as you want to get
light into a high-class autumn handicap. The days is long past
since Nicholas was nuts on the game little Lecturer, but still has
the interests of the Turf at heart; and, my dear young friend, if
horses never ran in and out, where would be "the glorious
uncertainty of the sport"? On the whole, then, if asked my opinion
on this affair, the Prophet would say--putting it ambiguous-like--
"Gentlemen, when there's so much dirty linen to wash, can't you
remember that we're all pretty much tarred with the same brush?" A
great politician--which a lot of his family is here, Coningsby, and
the Young Duke, and many other sportsmen--used to say as what the
Turf was "a gigantic engine of national demoralisation;" which
Nicholas is not quite sure but what he was right for him, though
his language on rather a large scale.
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