We resolved to lay a bet with Mr. Cheerful, and see what came of it. So we stepped across the road into Mr. Cheerful’s Betting-shop, and, having glanced at the lists hanging up therein, while another noble sportsman (a boy with a blue bag) laid another bet with Mr. Cheerful, we expressed our desire to back Tophana for the Western Handicap, to the spirited amount of half-a-crown. In making this advance to Mr. Cheerful, we looked as knowing on the subject, both of Tophana and the Western Handicap, as it was in us to do: though, to confess the humiliating truth, we neither had, nor have, the least idea in connexion with those proper names, otherwise than as we suppose Tophana to be a horse, and the Western Handicap an aggregate of stakes. It being Mr. Cheerful’s business to be grave and ask no questions, he accepted our wager, booked it, and handed us over his railed desk the dirty scrap of pasteboard, in right of which we were to claim – the day after the race; we were to be very particular about that – seven-and-sixpence sterling, if Tophana won. Some demon whispering us that here was an opportunity of discovering whether Mr. Cheerful had a good bank of silver in the cash-box, we handed in a sovereign. Mr. Cheerful’s head immediately slipped down behind the partition, investigating imaginary drawers; and Mr. Cheerful’s voice was presently heard to remark, in a stifled manner, that all the silver had been changed for gold that morning. After which, Mr. Cheerful reappeared in the twinkling of an eye, called in from a parlour the sharpest small boy ever beheld by human vision, and dispatched him for change. We remarked to Mr. Cheerful that if he would obligingly produce half-a-sovereign (having so much gold by him) we would increase our bet, and save him trouble. But, Mr. Cheerful, sliding down behind the partition again, answered that the boy was gone, now – trust him for that; he had vanished the instant he was spoken to – and it was no trouble at all. Therefore, we remained until the boy came back, in the society of Mr. Cheerful, and of an inscrutable woman who stared out resolutely into the street, and was probably Mrs. Cheerful. When the boy returned, we thought we once saw him faintly twitch his nose while we received our change, as if he exulted over a victim; but, he was so miraculously sharp, that it was impossible to be certain.