228 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



lady who later did me the honour to become my wife to 

 go and pass my Divinity examination at Oxford. I did 

 this thing, even though it involved driving in a pig-cart 

 from Abingdon along the flooded road, and I did not even 

 possess a Greek Testament at the time, but that did not 

 worry me, for the Bible has always been my standard 

 work. So the examination was passed as a matter of 

 course, though, as mentioned already, I did not trouble 

 to take my degree until twenty years later. What fools 

 we mortals be ! 



I suppose it is only natural that I should dwell it 

 may be too long on this particular year, 1876, with its 

 various see-saw mechanism as between Kisber and 

 Petrarch, and its much more important happening, as 

 far as I was concerned : but I must, at any rate, make 

 some mention of the Cobham sale, and also of the fact 

 that, having finished my year with Mr Butterworth, the 

 Special Pleader, I was doing six months in the chambers 

 of Mr Charles Davidson, the famous conveyancer, who, 

 however, was then an old man and wrote me twelve years 

 later, on i6th November 1888 : 



I am satisfied that you were in ray chambers as a pupil for six 

 months, in or about 1876, but the interval which has elapsed 

 precludes me from being able to give any definite statement as to 

 your capacity or knowledge of law. 



CHARLES DAVIDSON. 



Quite so, and all honour to the old gentleman for not 

 testifying to what he did not remember ; but to have been 

 six months in Davidson's chambers unless you were 

 quite a fool was an ample credential that you must have 

 had considerable knowledge of the law as it then was. 



But all this time I have been missing events of some 

 importance, one of which was that in December, 1875, 

 I won first prize at the Alexandra Palace, with Jester II., 

 the best fox-terrier I ever owned. He was by old Jester 

 out of a pure kennel-terrier bitch, bred by Ben Morgan 

 and belonging to Lord Middleton's kennels. He was given 



