32 JOHN BAYNTON STARKEY, ESQ. 



world. The curious items in it, extending over four 

 years, would doubtless have been intensely edifying 

 an account which w r ould have been set forth with 

 methodical order and admirable perspicuity ; yet in the 

 algebraic characters denning the problem, would have 

 formed a puzzle that would have defied any mathema- 

 tician of less ability than Colenso himself. So that, 

 after all, the reader, by a mystical figure of speech, ' in 

 its great loss will lose but little.' 



The habit by which Mr. Starkey really lost himself, 

 was his eccentric propensity to borrow from irregular 

 practitioners. Before ever he commenced racing, he 

 made a lucky hit, as he himself phrased it, in the dis- 

 covery of a rich friend in the money-lending way of 

 business, as pleasant as he was polite, and as generous 

 as he was obliging, from whom he borrowed 16,000 ; 

 and was equally fortunate in getting rid of the liability 

 through the assistance of another disinterested member 

 of the same gracious fraternity, as he afterwards ex- 

 pressed himself to me, ' satisfactorily, on my own terms.' 

 These satisfactory terms were more or less the following : 

 The 16,000 he had borrowed, or rather, I should say, 



had become liable for, to a Mr. H . Wishing to pay 



him off, he called on Mr. Padwick with a view of obtain- 

 ing his assistance in doing so. With the instinct of his 

 craft, the latter soon discovered that, in actual cash, Mr. 

 Starkey had received but little ; and at once offered Mr. 



H his cheque for 12,000 for the bills representing 



Mr. Starkey's debt. With the usual preliminary story 

 that ' he had had to borrow the cash from an uncon- 

 scionable old rip at a high rate of interest, and would 

 lose money by the transaction if he took off' a farthing,' 

 and with well-feigned reluctance to the last, the offer 

 was accepted, and the matter ended. Well may Mr. 



