Betting men who ignore these things are as unintellectual as the
average novelist. There are some, for instance, who shut their eyes
and bring down a pin or a pencil on a list of names of the horses, in
the hope that in this way they may discover a winner. No doubt they
may. It is perhaps as good a way as any other. But there is something
trivial in such methods. This is mere gambling for the sake of
excitement. There is no more fundamental brainwork in it than in a
game I saw being played in a railway carriage the other day, when a
man drew a handful of coins from his pocket and bet his friend
half-a-sovereign that there would be more heads than tails lying
uppermost. This is a game at which it is possible to lose five pounds
in two minutes. It is the sort of game to which a betting man will
resort when _in extremis_, but only then. The ruling passion is
strong, however. I have a friend who on one occasion went into retreat
in a Catholic monastery. Two well-known bookmakers had also gone into
temporary retreat for the good of their souls. My friend told me that
even during the religious services the bookmakers used to bet as to
which of the monks would stand up first at the conclusion of a prayer,
and that in the solemn hush of the worship he would suddenly hear a
hoarse whisper: "Two to one on Brownie"--a brother with hair of that
colour--and the answer: "I take you, Joe." I have even heard of men
betting as to which of two raindrops on a window-pane will reach the
bottom first.
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