AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 449 



that the first morning streak in the heavens was 

 sufficient to arouse him from his bed: he went down 

 with the sun and got up with it. He tells the story 

 himself of his early life how " for two years I never 

 had a coat to my back and never had a glass of wine 

 in my house yet they tell me now there are jockeys 

 who give seventy-five shillings a dozen for their sherry, 

 and if they can afford it honestly, all I can say is, I don't 

 grudge it them." We are now speaking of the days 

 when jockeys worked hard, before the era of express 

 trains, when four-mile heats were the fashion, and when 

 a jockey never expected more than two or three 

 sovereigns for a mount, or when a " tenner " as a present 

 was talked of throughout the season. The riding of 

 Problem to victory in the One Thousand for the Duke 

 of Portland opened out a brilliant career for young 

 Day, who afterwards gained the title of " Honest 

 John," conferred in later years by common consent upon 

 his parallel of Middleham. It was after this per- 

 formance that the Duke summoned 'John to wait upon 

 him. Trembling and apprehensive of something wrong 

 he knew not of, John stood on the mat at the threshold 

 of the Duke's residence when his Grace addressed him, 

 " Come in, John Day." John, having responded to the 

 invitation, the Duke resumed, " John Day, I am about 

 to make you a handsome present for the way you have 

 ridden my horses this week." " Thank you, my Lord 

 Duke," interpolated John. " I am about to give you 

 two ten-pound notes of the bank of Messrs. So-and-So, 

 Bury St. Edmunds, respectable bankers." Such was 

 the extent of ducal gratitude to a jockey fifty years ago. 

 In this fin de siecle period even a duke would not be 

 rewarded with a mere acknowledgment of thanks by a 

 fashionable knight of the pigskin. Another story of 

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