126 ASHGILL; OR, THE LIFE 



Kid " for a nickname. Another element of his success 

 was that he never gave up riding a horse until he was 

 past the post, so as to be there in the count for any 

 mishap taking place to the leader, and never was this 

 policy better exemplified than in his riding of Starke. 

 He was as popular in private as in public life, and 

 particularly so with the Army, many of whose officers, 

 on leaving the country, were wont to leave commissions 

 behind them to back every mount he had for a tenner, 

 with a result that left a respectable credit balance at 

 the end of the season. Like John Osborne, he more 

 than once felt the loss of being unable to speak the lingo 

 of La belle France. The story is told of Fordham when 

 in Paris it would be in the year '60 lie went into a 

 hairdresser's shop, where he expressed in dumb show, 

 of course, that he wanted his hair cut. The coiffeur 

 so operated upon the capillary adornment of ' The 

 Kid's " head that he left him as bare as a cannon ball. 

 On his return to Newmarket, " The Kid's " cropped 

 appearance excited some apprehension as to what he had 

 been guilty of in the gay Lutetia. His travelling tutor, 

 Mr. Mellish, asked him if he had been " doing time," to 

 which insulting question he indignantly replied " that it 

 was all very well for him to talk, but he should like to 

 know what he would have done had he been in Paris and 

 had his hair cut and been unable to tell them when to 

 stop." His manner was somewhat rough and unpolished, 

 but beneath the rugged exterior there was a kind heart, 

 which prompted many kind acts to the younger branch 

 of his profession, and it can be said that when the " pale 

 horseman " at last rode away with him into the realms 

 of shade, George Fordham left not an enemy behind. 

 He sprang from Cambridge from humble circum- 



