On the previous evening, after dinner, he had
allowed himself to back the Prime Minister for the Leger to a very
serious amount. In fact he had plunged, and now stood to lose some
twenty thousand pounds on the doings of the last night. And he had
made these bets under the influence of Major Tifto. It was the
remembrance of this, after the promise he had made to his father,
that annoyed him the most. He was imbued with a feeling that it
behoved him as a man to 'pull himself together' as he would have
said himself, and to live in accordance with certain rules. He
could make the rules easily enough, but he had never yet succeeded
in keeping any one of them. He had determined to sever himself
from Tifto, and, in doing that, had intended to sever himself from
the affairs of the turf generally. This resolution was not yet a
week old. It was on that evening that he had resolved that Tifto
should no longer be his companion; and now he had to confess to
himself that because he had drunk three or four glasses of
champagne he had been induced by Tifto to make those wretched
bets.
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