LARK AND PRETTV WIDOW. 215 



Greenway next November," for I am not on that 

 plan I can assure you. You deserve all the praise, 

 and were I never to run a dog again, you should 

 have it. But to return to my having been put up 

 as judge in the absence of my good and respected 

 friend, Mr. Long, who had been acting for you. 

 Mr. Lawrence's " Lark " and Mr. Esdaile's " Pretty 

 Widow " were in the slips ; it was late in the day 

 and not much ground before us ; and they had a 

 very short course, if I remember rightly, nothing 

 more than a run up, over a very little extent of 

 ground ; yet that run up, short as it was, gave me to 

 see so vast a superiority, placed where I was, in Mr. 

 Lawrence's dog's foot over Mr. Esdaile's, that I at 

 once decided the course in Mr. Lawrence's favour. 

 Mr. Esdaile was dissatisfied at being so beaten, and, 

 doubting the correctness of the decision, he made a 

 match on the spot, to be run at the next public meet- 

 ing on the Deptford Downs. The course then proved 

 my decision to have been just, for Mr. Lawrence's 

 greyhound won the match, as it were, in a canter. I 

 once saw a rough greyhound brought out at the 

 Greenway, not entered for any stake, but as it turned 

 out, to seek a match. What her owner had done to 

 her coat I cannot tell, but certainly it was the best 

 imitation of dirt, mange, and cutaneous disorder, I 

 ever beheld. We all jumped at a match with her, 

 and she beat one of my greyhounds hollow. The 

 chief constable, who was out with us, having his eyes 

 always about him as a chief constable ever should, saw 

 further between the hairs of the greyhound than we 

 did, and mildly took small bets to any amount of half 

 crowns, and rejoiced exceedingly, though I thought 

 I saw the frown of office peep from under his hat at 



p 4 



