The curse of the horse race – to begin at the beginning

Date of story -1910

Age of waugh – 7

Well it seems hard to say much on a seven year olds story ,this is a short cautionary tale on the errors of betting on a horse ,of Tom and Rupert ,a puliesman (policeman ) as the young Waugh put it is killed .Rupert goes on the run after a bet goes wrong and he kills a policeman later Tom finds him in the Inn hiding and takes him to the police .

quote –

chap 11-

the next moring Tom took his seat in the grant stand while Rupert mounted sally (which was his horse) with the others to wate for the pistol shot which would anounse the start .

the race was soon over and Rupery had lost .What was he to do could he do the deed ? yes I’ll kill him in the night ,he thought .

The spelling are Waugh aged 7 -but that humour is there a bit mounted sally bit .

So does this live upto the old saying by Jesuit priest” show me the boy I’ll show you the man ”

I think it does ,but we ll find out more over next few weeks as I work through the section in Everyman collection called Juvenilia which covers his first tentive steps in the writing world .