CHAPTERS FROM TURF HISTORY 



method, judgment, self-restraint, not too much 

 imagination, and powers of calculation." Such 

 qualities Endymion's landlord was actively em- 

 ploying in anticipation of the Derby, and his 

 family, who were deeply interested in the result, 

 were to attend " the celebrated festival." One 

 of the patrician lodgers insists on taking the 

 Rodney family to Epsom on his drag, and Endy- 

 mion joins the party. Another of the passengers 

 is credited with saying that he is not a classical 

 scholar, " but there are two things which I think 

 I understand, men and horses.^ I like to back 

 them both when I think they ought to win." 

 The drive to " the Carnival of England " is des- 

 cribed. It is a bright day — a day of wild hopes 

 and terrible fears, but yet, on the whole, of joy 

 and exultation. Unfortunately, the author dis- 

 misses the race with the brief sentence : " The 

 right horse won." Accordingly, Mr. Rodney 

 pockets a good stake. Although the hero did 

 not know he had betted, he found he too had 

 won a little money. Mr. Rodney " had put him 

 on something, though what that meant he had 

 not the slightest idea." A fair neighbour informs 

 him it is all right. " Mr. Rodney constantly 

 put her on something." The return from the 

 race-course is delightfully written, and the chapter 

 ends with a laugh at Jawett — a rather malignant 

 portrait — who " disapproved of races." 



" The right horse won." It may have been so 



I This is a curious plagiarism of Lord George Bentinck's state- 

 ment concerning himself: "I don't pretend to know much, but I 

 ■can judge of men and horses." — Disraeli's Life of Lord George 

 Bentinck, p. 575. 



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