258 MEMORIES OF MEN AND HORSES 



than whom there never was a more courteous and kindly 

 gentleman, nor one who knew better what he was 

 writing about and how to write it. He was always 

 most scrupulously dressed and groomed so to speak 

 his hair and moustache being special subjects of care. 

 Indeed he used to be known as " The Count," and really 

 he would have posed well in the earlier half of the last 

 century among the elite of that time. If I remember 

 rightly, he was also the " Van-driver" of Bailey's 

 Magazine. For many years he used to stay at the 

 Rutland Arms, Newmarket, and always occupied the 

 table next the inner door of the coffee-room, until it was 

 his by almost prescriptive right. That table is supposed 

 to be mine now, but I am always glad to see other friends 

 there, as they well know. I remember good old Cole 

 losing a sovereign over me once. It was in 1895, and 

 it so chanced that on the first day of Ascot I had an 

 attack of the most intolerably acute neuritis in the right 

 shoulder and arm. I had to get away after the second 

 race. Curiously enough, in struggling through an 

 article at Waterloo Station with a pencil held in both 

 hands I gave every winner for the following day. 



I happened to be staying at Thames Ditton, and 

 got home, but there was no such thing possible as 

 bed. The doctor gave salycene, and such-like remedies, 

 without effect, and, to make a long story short, on the 

 third night he injected morphia to compel sleep, but the 

 twitch of that pain would have awakened the dead, and, 

 sure enough, it awakened me after ten minutes, the 

 result being that I had no sleep and a horrible headache. 



Then came the Friday night, the fourth consecutive 

 sleepless one, and the next day was the Cobham sale. 

 I got the doctor (the late Dr Riley) to go with me, and 



