234 "MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE!" 



ultimately increased to 40,000 at 10 per cent., with 2\ 

 per cent, commission to Mr Webster for arranging the 

 business. He was a man of whom, adopting the maxim, 

 De mortuis nil nisi bonum, I can truly say that he was 

 gifted with extraordinary abilities. 



He joined the Board of the Stud Company to protect 

 the financial interests of the Credit Company, and at that 

 time he was absolutely ignorant on the subject of horses 

 in general and bloodstock in particular. 



He mastered the subject in its business details within 

 a few weeks, and very soon he had also grasped what the 

 Continental and Colonial demand was for the British 

 thoroughbred. All this he was destined to exploit within 

 two or three years for his own advantage at Marden 

 Deer Park. He had a private financial business in 

 Abchurch Lane, with the late Captain Noel Hoare, R.N., 

 as partner. The Credit Company was located within 

 easy distance, and one of the Guinness family was its 

 chief capitalist. 



Such, then, was the position, and I got married on 

 3oth August 1876, before I had even passed my Bar 

 examination. No man is a hero at his own wedding 

 indeed he is but a necessary encumbrance and it is 

 not my intention to give any account of that function 

 save that an uncle of my wife, the late Colonel Arthur 

 Campbell- Walker, brought down some pipers of a Highland 

 regiment, who piped so distractingly that in changing my 

 wedding garments for going-away rig, I forgot to transfer 

 my note-case, and, as a result, found, before we had 

 driven 200 yards, that I had but a few shillings in my 

 pocket. 



It was, of course, impossible to turn back, and as we 

 were only driving from a distance of 15 miles to a London 

 hotel it did not much matter. I telegraphed from the 

 first available office, asking for my note-case to be for- 

 warded, and it was brought to London for me by a Sandown 

 Park official who happened to be on his way to town. 

 I have always liked Sandown Park, and that incident 



