When his father had taken him racing — never informing his mother or Miss Steadman where they were going — Keith would watch as the old man placed large sums of money on every race, occasionally passing over sixpence to his son so he could also try his luck. To begin with Keith’s bets did no more than reflect his father’s selections, but to his surprise he found that this usually resulted in his returning home with empty pockets.
After several such Wednesday-afternoon trips to the racetrack, and having discovered that most of his sixpences ended up in the bookmaker’s bulky leather bag, Keith decided to invest a penny a week in the Sporting Globe. As he turned the pages, he learned the form of every jockey, trainer and owner recognized by the Victoria Racing Club, but even with this newfound knowledge he seemed to lose just as regularly as before. By the third week of term he had often gambled away all his pocket money.
Keith’s life changed the day he spotted a book advertised in the Sporting Globe called How to Beat the Bookie, by ‘Lucky Joe.’ He talked Florrie into lending him half a crown, and sent a postal order off to the address at the bottom of the advertisement. He greeted the postman every morning until the book appeared nineteen days later. From the moment Keith opened the first page, Lucky Joe replaced Homer as his compulsory reading during the evening prep period. After he had read the book twice, he was confident that he had found a system which would ensure that he always won. The following Wednesday he returned to the racecourse, puzzled as to why his father hadn’t taken advantage of Lucky Joe’s infallible method.
Keith cycled home that night having parted with a whole term’s pocket money in one afternoon. He refused to blame Lucky Joe for his failure, and assumed that he simply hadn’t fully understood the system. After he had read the book a third time, he realized his mistake. As Lucky Joe explained on page seventy-one, you must have a certain amount of capital to start off with, otherwise you can never hope to beat the bookie. Page seventy-two suggested that the sum required was £10, but as Keith’s father was still abroad, and his mother’s favorite maxim was ‘neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ he had no immediate way of proving that Lucky Joe was right.
He therefore came to the conclusion that he must somehow make a little extra cash, but as it was against school rules to earn any money during term time, he had to satisfy himself with reading Lucky Joe’s book yet again. He would have received ‘A’ grades in the end-of-term exams if How to Beat the Bookie had been the set text.
Once term was over, Keith returned to Toorak and discussed his financial problems with Florrie. She told him of several ways that her brothers had earned pocket money during their school holidays. After listening to her advice, Keith returned to the racecourse the following Saturday, not this time to place a bet — he still didn’t have any spare cash — but to collect manure from behind the stables, which he shoveled into a sugarbag that had been supplied by Florrie. He then cycled back to Melbourne with the heavy sack on his handlebars, before spreading the muck over his relatives’ flowerbeds. After forty-seven such journeys back and forth to the racecourse in ten days, Keith had pocketed thirty shillings, satisfied the needs of all his relatives, and had moved on to their next-door neighbors.
By the end of the holiday he had amassed £3 7s. 4d. After his mother had handed over his next term’s pocket money of a pound, he couldn’t wait to return to the race-track and make himself a fortune. The only problem was that Lucky Joe’s foolproof system stated on page seventy-two, and repeated on page seventy-three: ‘Don’t attempt the system with less than £10.’
Keith would have read How to Beat the Bookie a ninth time if his housemaster, Mr. Clarke, had not caught him thumbing through it during prep. Not only was his dearest treasure confiscated, and probably destroyed, but he had to face the humiliation of a public beating meted out by the headmaster in front of the whole school. As he bent over the table he stared down at Desmond Motson in the front row, who was unable to keep the smirk off his face.
Mr. Clarke told Keith before lights out that night that if he hadn’t intervened on his behalf, Keith would undoubtedly have been expelled. He knew this would not have pleased his father — who was on his way back from a place called Yalta in the Crimea — or his mother, who had begun talking about him going to a university in England called Oxford. But Keith remained more concerned by how he could convert his £3 7s. 4d. into £10.
It was during the third week of term that Keith came up with an idea for doubling his money which he felt sure the authorities would never latch on to.
The school tuck shop opened every Friday between the hours of five and six, and then remained closed until the same time the following week. By Monday morning most of the boys had devoured all their Cherry Ripes, munched their way through several packets of chips and happily guzzled countless bottles of Marchants’ lemonade. Although they were temporarily sated, Keith was in no doubt that they still craved more. He considered that, in these circumstances, Tuesday to Thursday presented an ideal opportunity to create a seller’s market. All he needed to do was stockpile some of the most popular items from the tuck shop, then flog them off at a profit as soon as the other boys had consumed their weekly supplies.
When the tuck shop opened the following Friday, Keith was to be found at the front of the queue. The duty master was surprised that young Townsend spent £3 purchasing a large carton of Minties, an even larger one of thirty-six packets of chips, two dozen Cherry Ripes and two wooden boxes containing a dozen bottles of Marchants’ lemonade. He reported the incident to Keith’s housemaster. Mr. Clarke’s only observation was, ‘I’m surprised that Lady Townsend indulges the boy with so much pocket money.’
Keith dragged his spoils off to the changing room, where he hid everything at the back of his games locker. He then waited patiently for the weekend to pass.
On the Saturday afternoon Keith cycled off to the racecourse, although he was meant to be watching the first eleven play their annual match against Geelong Grammar. He had a frustrating time, unable to place any bets. Strange, he reflected, how you could always pick winner after winner when you had no money.
After chapel on Sunday, Keith checked the senior and junior common rooms, and was delighted to discover that food and drink supplies were already running low. During the Monday morning break he watched his classmates standing around in the corridor, swapping their last sweets, unwrapping their final chocolate bars and swigging their remaining gulps of lemonade.
On Tuesday morning he saw the rows of empty bottles being lined up by the dustbins in the corner of the quad. By the afternoon he was ready to put his theory into practice.
During the games period he locked himself into the school’s small printing room, for which his father had supplied the equipment the previous year. Although the press was fairly ancient and could only be worked by hand, it was quite adequate for Keith’s needs.
An hour later he emerged clutching thirty copies of his first tabloid, which announced that an alternative tuck shop would be open every Wednesday between the hours of five and six, outside locker number nineteen in the senior changing room. The other side of the page showed the range of goods on offer and their ‘revised’ prices.