Here was a new passion for him, which, like all his others, should only by its perversion end in his ruin.
He had got some money on one of the horses, though he, of course, had never seen it.

There was a cheer all along the line, and a dark bay fled past towards the starting-post, seeming rather to belong to the air than the ground.

"By George," he said, aloud, as the blood mounted to his face, and tingled in his ears, "I never saw such a sight as that before." He was ashamed of having spoken aloud in his excitement, but a groom who stood by said, for his consolation,-- "I don't suppose you ever did, sir, nor no man else.

That's young Velocipede, and that's Chiffney a-ridin' him.

You'll see that horse walk over for everything next year." But now the horses came down, five of them abreast; at a walk, amid a dead silence from the crowd, three of them, steady old stagers, but two jumping and pulling.