Excerpt from Wolaroi's Cup Four years later he came to me again. I was no longer the sickly brat of my early childhood, but still a weakling and little better than a dwarf. But I was not destitute of talent, for my brain had outstripped my body in development. My father's second visit was inspired by the fact that I had passed the Junior Public Examination with seven A's. I had long outgrown my babyish abject fear of him, but its place was occupied with a half resentful, half pitiful disgust. He was an utter stranger to me, and I judged him as a stranger. I disliked him, because he had always neglected me. I pitied him because bad times were clouding his career. He was called unlucky Counsel, and his steadily increasing losses on the turf were in all men's mouths. I was too young then to realise that he was not exactly playing the game to take such risks with his fine fortune. I dimly understood that he was embarked on a course that might impoverish us all, but I fancied it was none of my business to feel offended. His money was his own to play ducks and drakes with if he chose. My mother seemed to hold that view, and I took my every cue from her. My tu'or was explaining a problem in geometry when my father, for the second time, crossed the threshold of my little kingdom. He dismissed my tutor and sank into the vacated chair. Only then I noticed he was not entirely sober. He fixed me with a pair of bloodshot eyes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.