AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 183 



his mother was in a mad-house, and epilepsy and 

 insanity frequently co-exist. 



'' We know of several instances where he made 

 mild, meek, little men pay him twice over; and 

 though they had settled with him not half an hour 

 before, he has demanded payment a second time, 

 and has frequently been paid a second time. Indeed, 

 his demands were made in so imperious a tone, 

 and his conduct was so offensive and violent if his 

 victims demurred, that, rather than have a scene, they 

 have consented to ' pay again.' It is, however, but just 

 to Stephenson to say that in some of these cases he has 

 refunded the money, when he afterwards, in his calmer 

 moments, discovered that he had made a mistake. But 

 bullies are always cowards, and he never asked a big 

 man for payment twice over ; it was only the weak whom 

 he oppressed and whom he insulted, for his behaviour 

 before a big swell was not unfrequently of a cringing 

 nature. 



" His powers of calculation, when he was sober, 

 were prodigious, and he never was wrong; even when 

 he was drunk (and latterly he very frequently was so) 

 he made few or no mistakes in his calculations. We 

 have frequently seen him so drunk that he could not 

 write down the bets, but he never made a mistake in 

 the odds, and never got the worst of the transactions. 

 Another remarkable trait in ' Stevey's ' character was his 

 unselfishness in large commissions. If he backed a 

 gentleman's horse to win, say, 20,000 for any parti- 

 cular race, he was quite willing to let the owner have the 

 lion's share at the full average price say, he would let 

 him have 18,000 at the average odds, and be content 

 with 2000 for himself. Stephenson was also of 



