quired Mr Bhosh, "that you are not on the heath of Epsom instead of wallowing like this on my shoes?"
"I do not know," was the whimpered response.
"Then pray where is my Derby favourite, Milky Way?" demanded Bindabun.
"I cannot tell," wailed out the lachrymose juvenile. Then, after prolonged pressure, he confessed that the Duchess had met him at the station portals, and, on the plea that there was abundance of spare time to book the mare, easily persuaded him to accompany her to the buffet of Refreshment-room.
There she plied him with a stimulant which jockeys are proverbially unable to resist, viz., brandy-cherries, in such profusion that he promptly became catalyptic in a corner.
When he returned to sobriety neither the Duchess nor the mare was perceptible to his naked eye, and he had been searching in vain for them ever since.
It was the time not for words, but deeds,
