But, the mischief has the drawback that it does not end here. When there are so many Picks and Tips to be had, which will, of a surety, pick and tip their happy owners into the lap of Fortune, it becomes the duty of every butcher’s boy and errand lad who is sensible of what is due to himself, immediately to secure a Pick and Tip of the cheaper sort, and to go in and win. Having purchased the talisman from the Conquering Prophet, it is necessary that the noble sportsman should have a handy place provided for him, where lists of the running horses and of the latest state of the odds, are kept, and where he can lay out his money (or somebody else’s) on the happy animals at whom the Prophetic eye has cast a knowing wink. Presto! Betting-shops spring up in every street! There is a demand at all the brokers’ shops for old, fly-blown, coloured prints of race-horses, and for any odd folio volumes that have the appearance of Ledgers. Two such prints in any shop-window, and one such book on any shop-counter, will make a complete Betting-office, bank, and all.

The Betting-shop may be a Tobacconist’s, thus suddenly transformed; or it may be nothing but a Betting-shop. It may be got up cheaply, for the purposes of Pick and Tip investment, by the removal of the legitimate counter, and the erection of an official partition and desk in one corner; or, it may be wealthy in mahogany fittings, French polish, and office furniture. The presiding officer, in an advanced stage of shabbiness, may be accidentally beheld through the little window – whence from the inner mysteries of the Temple, he surveys the devotees before entering on business – drinking gin with an admiring client; or he may be a serenely condescending gentleman of Government Office appearance, who keeps the books of the establishment with his glass in his eye. The Institution may stoop to bets of single shillings, or may reject lower ventures than half-crowns, or may draw the line of demarcation between itself and the snobs at five shillings, or seven-and-sixpence, or half-a-sovereign, or even (but very rarely indeed), at a pound. Its note of the little transaction may be a miserable scrap of limp pasteboard with a wretchedly printed form, worse filled up; or, it may be a genteelly tinted card, addressed ‘To the Cashier of the Aristocratic Club,’ and authorising that important officer to pay the bearer two pounds fifteen shillings, if Greenhorn wins the Fortunatus’s Cup; and to be very particular to pay it the day after the race. But, whatever the Betting-shop be, it has only to be somewhere – anywhere, so people pass and repass – and the rapid youth of England, with its slang intelligence perpetually broad awake and its weather eye continually open, will walk in and deliver up its money, like the helpless Innocent that it is.