1HE OBSERVED OF ALL OBSERVEP.S'. CI 



were more spectators than accident could have brought together. 

 Wliether this circumstance tended to increase our trainer's 

 vigilance I cannot say ; but his eyes were scarcely ever turned 

 from me. 



Such was the anxious desire that the change of quarters 

 should not render me the least irritable or " off my feed," that 

 as soon as I entered the box prepared for my reception at 

 Leatherhead, Harry Dale opened a basket, which he had carried 

 with some care and much personal inconvenience, and out 

 leaped my stable companion and i^laymate, Toby. 



" There, my bo-o-oy," said he, " vv'e'll make everything look 

 as much like home as pausible, so as the hackles o' your temper 

 mayn't get ruffled." 



Wearied with the monotony of the long walk, easy as the 

 stages had been rendered, I felt much relief at finding myself 

 again in Toby's beguiling society ; and his hoarse, familiar 

 me-u-ow, as he sprang upon the edge of the crib to stretch his 

 limbs after a prolonged confinement, produced the desired effect 

 of soothing that irritation which, more or less, invariably 

 attends a change of stabling. Indeed, if I may judge from my 

 own feelings, the alterations for the worse in condition on the 

 eve of a race, so frequently assigned to a chauge of water, 

 might often, with greater reason, be traced to the fretfalness 

 which accompanies our leaving home. 



"We arrived at Leatherhead on a Friday about noon, and in 

 accordance with our trainer's usual system, to which, however, 

 there were a few exceptions when horses were constitutionally 

 gross, I was to have my last sweat the following morning, con- 

 sistently observing in my presence to his employer upon one 

 occasion — " If we leave nothing in a horse, Sir Digby, how can 

 we expect to get anything out of him ? " 



It is almost needless to add that as soon as I made my 

 appearance on the Downs I became "the observed of all 

 observers." Numbers hastened from all points of the compass, 

 early as was the hour, to see one upon whose powers so much 

 depended; and as I walked past several groups, varied were 

 the opinions, hopes, and fears concerning the result of the 



