“On Monday week,” he said, “you may or may not know, the annual village school-treat takes place. Lord Wickhammersley lends the Hall grounds for the purpose. There will be games, and a conjurer, and coconut shies, and tea in a tent. And also sports.”
“I know. Cynthia was telling me.”
Young Bingo winced.
“Would you mind not mentioning that name? I am not made of marble.”
“Sorry!”
“Well, as I was saying, this jamboree is slated for Monday week. The question is, Are we on?”
“How do you mean, ‘Are we on’?”
“I am referring to the sports. Steggles did so well out of the Sermon Handicap that he has decided to make a book on these sports. Punters can be accommodated at ante-post odds or starting price, according to their preference.”
Steggles, I don’t know if you remember, was one of the gang of youths who were reading for some examination or other with old Heppenstall down at the Vicarage. He was the fellow who had promoted the Sermon Handicap. A bird of considerable enterprise and vast riches, being the only son of one of the biggest bookies in London, but no pal of mine. I never liked the chap. He was a ferret-faced egg with a shifty eye and not a few pimples. On the whole, a nasty growth.
“I think we ought to look into it,” said young Bingo.
I pressed the bell. “I’ll consult Jeeves. I don’t touch any sporting proposition without his advice. Jeeves,” I said, as he drifted in, “rally round.”
“Sir?”
“Stand by. We want your advice.”
“Very good, sir.”
“State your case, Bingo.”
Bingo stated his case.
“What about it, Jeeves?” I said. “Do we go in?”
Jeeves pondered to some extent.
“I am inclined to favour the idea, sir.”
That was good enough for me. “Right,” I said. “Then we will form a syndicate and bust the Ring. I supply the money, you supply the brains, and Bingo—what do you supply, Bingo?”
“If you will carry me, and let me settle up later,” said young Bingo, “ I think I can put you in the way of winning a parcel on the Mothers’ Sack Race.”
“All right. We will put you down as Inside Information. Now, what are the events?”
BINGO reached for his paper and consulted it.
“Girls’ Under Fourteen Fifty-Yard Dash seems to open the proceedings.”
“Anything to say about that. Jeeves?”
“No, sir. I have no information.”
“What’s the next?”
“Boys’ and Girls’ Mixed Animal Potato Race, All Ages.”
This was a new one to me. I had never heard of it at any of the big meetings.
“What’s that?”
“Rather sporting,” said young Bingo. “The competitors enter in couples, each couple being assigned an animal cry and a potato. For instance, let’s suppose that you and Jeeves entered. Jeeves would stand at a fixed point holding a potato. You would have your head in a sack, and you would grope about trying to find Jeeves and making a noise like a cat; Jeeves also making a noise like a cat. Other competitors would be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs, and so on, and groping about for their potato-holders, who would also be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs and so on——”
I stopped the poor fish.
“Jolly if you’re fond of animals,” I said, “but on the whole——”
“Precisely, sir,” said Jeeves. “I wouldn’t touch it.”
“Too open, what?”
“Exactly, sir. Very hard to estimate form.”
“Carry on, Bingo. Where do we go from there?”
“Mothers’ Sack Race.”
“Ah! that’s better. This is where you know something.”
“A gift for Mrs. Penworthy, the tobacconist’s wife,” said Bingo, confidently. “I was in at her shop yesterday, buying cigarettes, and she told me she had won three times at fairs in Worcestershire. She only moved to these parts a short time ago, so nobody knows about her. She promised me she would keep herself dark, and I think we could get a good price.”
“Risk a tenner each way, Jeeves, what?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Girls’ Open Egg and Spoon Race,” read Bingo.
“How about that?”
“I doubt if it would be worth while to invest, sir,” said Jeeves. “I am told it is a certainty for last year’s winner, Sarah Mills, who will doubtless start an odds-on favourite.”
“Good, is she?”
“They tell me in the village that she carries a beautiful egg, sir.”
“Then there’s the Obstacle Race,” said Bingo. “Risky, in my opinion. Like betting on the Grand National. Fathers’ Hat-Trimming Contest—another speculative event. That’s all, except the Choir Boys’ Hundred Yards Handicap, for a pewter mug presented by the vicar—open to all whose voices have not broken before the second Sunday in Epiphany. Willie Chambers won last year, in a canter, receiving fifteen yards. This time he will probably be handicapped out of the race. I don’t know what to advise.”
“If I might make a suggestion, sir.”
I eyed Jeeves with interest. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him look so nearly excited.
“You’ve got something up your sleeve?”
“I have, sir.”
“Red-hot?”
“That precisely describes it, sir. I think I may confidently assert that we have the winner of the Choir Boys’ Handicap under this very roof, sir. Harold, the page-boy.”
“Page-boy? Do you mean the tubby little chap in buttons one sees bobbing about here and there? Why, dash it, Jeeves, nobody has a greater respect for your knowledge of form than I have, but I’m hanged if I can see Harold catching the judge’s eye. He’s practically circular, and every time I’ve seen him he’s been leaning up against something half-asleep.”
“He receives thirty yards, sir, and could win from scratch. The boy is a flier.”
“How do you know?”
Jeeves coughed, and there was a dreamy look in his eye.
“I was as much astonished as yourself, sir, when I first became aware of the lad’s capabilities. I happened to pursue him one morning with the intention of fetching him a clip on the side of the head——”
“Great Scott, Jeeves! You!”
“Yes, sir. The boy is of an outspoken disposition, and had made an opprobrious remark respecting my personal appearance.”
“What did he say about your appearance?”
“I have forgotten, sir,” said Jeeves, with a touch of austerity. “But it was opprobrious. I endeavoured to correct him, but he outdistanced me by yards and made good his escape.”
“But, I say, Jeeves, this is sensational. And yet—if he’s such a sprinter, why hasn’t anybody in the village found it out? Surely he plays with the other boys?”
“No, sir. As his lordship’s page boy, Harold