" Then I thought of the money pa had given me to bet, and I offered to bet it all, and a negro produced funds and took all my bets like a bookmaker.

After one of these entertainments I was travelling with John Gully, once a formidable champion of the ring, and at that time a great bookmaker, as well as owner of racehorsesafterwards presented at Court to her most gracious Majesty the late Queenand Member of Parliament.

There was a well-known bookmaker of my acquaintance whose whole mind was devoted to this passion; his lifetime was a gamble; everything seemed to be created to make a bet upon.

The second was Purvis, the publican, owner of the chief beer-shop, and well known as the local bookmaker.

He had stated to the police that the deceased's name was Charles Lavender, a well-known bookmaker, which fact was soon verified, for many of the murdered man's 'pals' were still in the city.

"So far the most pushing of newspaper reporters had been unable to glean further information from the police; no one doubted, however, but that the man in charge, who gave his name as George Higgins, had killed the bookmaker for purposes of robbery.

That news was that the inquest had concluded at three o'clock with a verdict of 'Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown,' and that two hours later the police had arrested Lord Arthur Skelmerton at his private residence, 'The Elms,' and charged him on a warrant with the murder of Charles Lavender, the bookmaker.

" CHAPTER VIII THE CAPITAL CHARGE "The police, it appears, instinctively feeling that some mystery lurked round the death of the bookmaker and his supposed murderer's quiet protestations of innocence, had taken a very considerable amount of trouble in collecting all the evidence they could for the inquest which might throw some light upon Charles Lavender's life, previous to his tragic end.

"At this point the police proposed to call a witness, James Terry by name and a bookmaker by profession, who had been chiefly instrumental in identifying the deceased, a 'pal' of his.

"If James Terry, the bookmaker, loud, florid, vulgar, was an unprepossessing individual, certainly George Higgins, who was still under the accusation of murder, was ten thousand times more so.

George Higgins in his deposition stated that at the most animated stage of Lavender's conversation with Lord Arthur, and when the bookmaker's tone of voice became loud and threatening, a voice from the top of the steps interrupted that conversation, saying: 'Your tea is getting cold.'" "Yesbut" she argued.

When Chipps, the footman, first told Lavender that Lord Arthur could not see him the bookmaker was terribly put out; Chipps then goes to speak to his master; a few minutes elapse, and when the footman once again tells Lavender that his lordship won't see him, the latter says 'Very well,' and seems to treat the matter with complete indifference.

"Obviously, therefore, something must have happened in between to alter the bookmaker's frame of mind.

"I'm the only one in the building," he said, "who isn't either a theatrical agent or a bookmaker.

I see that your friend Mr. Danby is a builder as well as a bookmaker.

Well, then, git!" That day Louis switched from the narrow-countered bakery-lunch route to regular standard-gauge restaurants; he ordered clothes like a bookmaker's bride and he sent a cubic foot of violets to Miss Harris.

The old chief acted as judge, bookmaker, clerk of the course, referee, and stakeholder.

'Anyway, it would be a disgrace to a man to have a son a bookmakera blackguard bookmaker.

Why, didn't I know that Charles was a racing and betting man, and a notorious bookmaker?

A blackguard bookmaker!

A pleasant thing for me to have all my friends talking about Charles Daffy, the bookmaker and the moneylender!

It matters nothing whether you keep the rules of the blackguard game, or whether you cheat; the difference between bookmaker and blackleg is so small that it isn't worth talking about.

[Illustration: Bookmaker (with long experience of the Turf but none of Coursing).

" Bookmaker.

His eye pierces through the tobacco smoke and transfixes the unhappy bookmaker.