A GORGEOUS NEW CHUM 



quarter. A few months before Navigator had taken 

 the Sydney Derby and the V.R.C. Derby. He was 

 one of the most compact, good-looking horses that 

 ever did a trainer credit. Then as now they laid the 

 double, Australian Cup and Newmarket Handicap, 

 the latter a six-furlong event. Sievier won a packet 

 over the latter and I believe had a double as well; 

 he was a wonderful judge of good horses. He would 

 back them, lay them, and go the maximum with the 

 " box," which to the uninitiated I may explain means 

 the game of hazard — with dice. 



There was a very gorgeous person named Lammerse 

 who dawned on us about this time, becoming a 

 persistent punter at the meetings. This Lammerse 

 was a tall man, almost the dead spit of what Mr James 

 Buchanan of Black and White fame was fifteen or 

 twenty years ago. Lammerse had a most magnificent 

 wardrobe with him, and would turn out in splendid 

 clothes, but of a very accentuated type. One day it 

 would be a long brown frock-coat suit with silk facings 

 and patent-leather boots with brown tops ; it all seemed 

 to want a top hat, but instead of that he wore a brown 

 bowler, all in the most perfect combination of colour. 

 Another day it would be his grey effect, and of course 

 a white bowler went with this turn-out, and he seemed 

 to like himself in these long coats. He had diamond 

 rings, tie rings, scarfpins, and the difficulty seemed 

 to be not to put them all on together. He had a gold- 

 mounted note-case with a coronet on it, whatever 

 that might have meant to signify ; possibly it was a 

 trade mark, for I believe he hailed from Belfast, where 

 he had been in business. His gloves too were a revela- 

 tion, and he would flick his shoes with gorgeous silk 

 handkerchiefs, some of which must have cost a guinea 

 a time. His long feet seemed accentuated by their 



77 



