EARLY TRIALS. 149 



Down, I laugh to find myself repeating the mystic words, * The 

 old one at even weights ! I couldn't have believed it.' 



GALLOP II. 



A still, hot, delicious afternoon at Newmarket, so hot that 

 there is a quivering haze in the air, which makes it what racing 

 men call a had day for glasses ; glasses will, however, be 

 much in request anon, for the horses are going to the post for 

 one of the chief two-year-old events of the autumn. 



The doctor still orders me full doses of fresh air, and the 

 article to be obtained on the Heath is unexceptionable both in 

 point of quantity and quality. So I bask in the sun, leaning 

 against one of the Stand pillars, and watch with some amuse- 

 ment the white, sad face of a young friend who has been 

 recently confiding to me the extent of his pecuniary embarrass- 

 ments, and the remoteness of his chance of settling on Monday 

 if this meeting 'comes off crabs,' as he assures me with 

 unnecessary asseverations has been the case up to the present 

 moment. I have been giving him good advice too, as to the 

 necessity of immediate reform and retrenchment in his style of 

 betting and general habits of living. He seemed to listen with 

 some attention. Can it be that he sees the error of his ways ? 

 Not just at present, if I may judge from the anxious air with 

 which he keeps gazing at the starting-post, where the white 

 flag is not yet hoisted, as if he would like to have it over and 

 know the worst at once. 



But apart from the study of my fellow-creatures, I really 

 feel that I have a personal interest in this race. A few minutes 

 ago I was strolling about in the Birdcage, looking at the 

 comely forms of some of the competitors, when my attention 

 was suddenly arrested by a lean ugly head with lop-ears, pro- 

 truding from one of the saddling-stalls. I looked again ; yes, 

 there was no mistaking that loose-made ungainly colt, with the 

 quaint, wistful expression of countenance once seen never to 

 be forgotten. Here was the ' three-cornered beggar ' of the 

 Hampshire Downs. 



