284 HORSE PORTKAITUEE. 



of my having lost it by a long way, in turf parlance, being 

 outside of the distance. Still it was one of those ventures 

 where the loss gives more pleasure than would attend the 

 winning. She was very much embarrassed, and I was 

 glad when the old gentleman signified his readiness to 

 return. We had hardly got into the yard when he shouted 

 to Charlie and Captain M. that I had acknowledged the 

 loss of the wine bet ; and I had the pleasure of seeing my 

 friends drinking the sparkling champagne, as I cogitated 

 on the two beautiful faces that had been the cause of the 

 flow of the enlivening fluid. 



PRECEPTOR. I am glad the old man trapped you into 

 t^e loss, though I neither admire your making the bar- 

 room of a track the place to expatiate on female beauty, 

 or the want of delicacy in the old man in making the 

 statement in the presence of his daughter. It was a pretty 

 shrewd trick, however, as I doubt whether he would have 

 ever got a decision in his favor in any other manner. 



PUPIL. I will engage that I never lay myself liable 

 again to be picked up. It was the second time in my life 

 that I would have given boot for a hollow log to crawl in, 

 and it would not have taken a very large orifice to accom- 

 modate me if my body was as small as I felt. The cigars 

 being still burning I will recount the other adventure. 

 When I was a young man I had an intimate acquaintance 

 in Dr. L. He was a very highly educated man, and 

 though not a member of the F. F. V.'s he was still a notch 

 or two up, belonging to a Philadelphia family of high 

 social position. From a long series of troubles originat- 

 ing in an unfortunate marriage, his finely organized brain 

 had become crazed, though at this time his madness was 

 in a very mild form. His friends sent him from Phila- 

 delphia to that rough part of Pennsylvania, where I was 

 engaged in land-surveying, and which had been a favorite 

 resort of his in his healthy days. He boarded at the 



