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MR. SINITER was wider than Broad Street. He was very rich and he trusted nobody, least of all jockeys. But he thought he could trust Lem Dooby, one of the smartest lads that ever left Australia for the good of the English turf. That a jockey could not trust him will be made clear.

Lem had rather a pretty wife. Saul Siniter had a soft place in his heart for beauty, married or unmarried; and Lem's wife had a weakness for good dinners, theatre parties, and those expensive but inconspicuous articles of jewellery that a very rich bookmaker could, with propriety, send her on her birthday.

One day, when Lem was riding in the North, Mrs. Lem and Saul dined magnificently, danced till three o'clock in the morning, at which hour Saul saw her home.

"I'll tell you the truth, Saul," said Margarita, which was her name: "I'm rather worried about Lem. He's one of those quiet people who say nothing and think a lot; and if he should hear—"

"Don't worry about Lem," scoffed Mr. Siniter, who was a very tall, handsome man with the manners of a duke—such dukes as have manners—"Unless you go talking, Lem will know nothing. Anyway, I'll write to him tomorrow, and tell him I took you out to dinner, so there's no secret about it."

Which was very true. There was no secret at all about the dinner part of the evening or even the dancing part.

Mr. Siniter, for all his bulk and his strength and his notorious savoir faire, was a moral coward, of the type to whom worry and suspicion were more potent poisons than strychnine and arsenic. For the moment, however, he saw no cause to worry; he had a horse that was saved for one of the big handicaps, and which he had backed at ridiculous odds; he had a certain winner in Hot Feet when the moment arrived to let his head loose; and he could contemplate the future with equanimity.

Before Hot Feet ran at Hurst he had a little conversation with Lem Dooby, who was a very nice little man without vice or temperament.

"Lem," he said, "I don't want you to win this race... yes, I know they'll make him favourite, but seven to four is no good to me. I've told everybody to back him and the next time we'll get a good price. You'd better get caught flat-footed at the start, and the further you're left the better I shall be pleased."

Lem nodded.

But he was a man who had many friends, in all circles of society; and as he was going into the ring he saw a nobleman for whom he had ridden and who he knew was in that select circle which supplies the stewards of meetings all over the country.

"I want to talk to you, Dooby," he said, and led the jockey aside. "You must tell nobody, not your best friend, what I'm telling you, but there's been a lot of talk about the way Siniter 'rubs out,' and they're watching your running to-day very carefully. In fact, one of the stewards will be down at the elbow to see the start. You can make any excuse you like to Siniter—and I know I can trust you not to tell him the truth—but I don't want to see you stood down."

Lem, who was a wise lad, touched his cap and went into the saddling-ring.

The story of Hot Feet's possibilities was already public property in Camden Town.