Our “Somnolent Reporter" Asleep at the Races.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1200, 13 November 1882, Page 2

Our “Somnolent Reporter" Asleep at the Races.

Ah usual that drowsy feeling overtook me, and I slumbered on the course at Makaraka when the fight was nearly over. Tn my dream I saw an immense concourse of people gathered around a wonderfully handsome ehesnut mare, beautiful as a poet’s dream, with the exception of her tail, which looked as if the rats had been nibbling at it. One of the cognoscenti was expatiating about her qualities. She had done grand work in private, and her trials had been most successful. He went on to state that she was by Atalanta out of Traducer, and when I thought of the many distinguished sons and daughters of this fashionable blood I at once advanced towards the totalisator, and would have ;n--vested but for the fact that I hadn’t got a red cent. I tried to borrow forty or eleven pounds, but each one I asked seemed to be as impecunious as myself, or at any rate if they had the money in their pockets they had sense with it. I next saw the owner in earni est conversation with a Bank Manager and I two proprietors of a newspaper, and overj heard the remarks made which are indelibly ; printed on my memory, “ What will you i take to lose this coming event ? ’ “ Millions [ could not purchase me as my honour is at ' stake. The public have backed me ! and for their money 1 intend to run.” i “ Honor,” said one of the newspaper men, • “ what on earth is that? I never heard of it before. I know what the stake is, it: a j diamond locket, but the other arrangement ' of which I know nothing, isn’t down on the j race card.” “We l !, my conscience and reputation,” was the reply. “Whac on earth are you talking about? Look here, old fe’low, talk English, so that we can understand you. Don’t use words of which wc haven’t the faintest knowledge, ‘honor,’ ‘conscience,’ and ‘reputation ’ I don’t know if you ever lived in Hf.idontan or Timbuctoo, but I never did, and I don’t know the languages spoken in these places. I Now, look here, old man, we tb'ce have been 1 betting rather heavily, and whau will it take j to square you ?” “ I really can’t understand what ‘ square ’ is.” “ Well, now, we’ll put it serai jht to you, | what will you take to make the horse a i ‘ stiff-un ?’ ” | “ Positively I can’t understand you.” “ Well, what money will you take io lose the race ?’’ “ I told you before my hon ” “Oh, stop that sort of thing,” cried the Bank Manager, “Lose it and there will be a thousand placed to your credit to-morrow morning.” There was a great outcry at this time which awakened me. I might state, however, that the race was lost.