Mr. Digby Collins 



I sent him on the same day to the Vale of Aylesbury, 

 where I was then hunting, and I found that I had a good 

 horse. 



He fell only twice, and soon became clever and confident. 



About two months after purchasing him, I was again 

 at Tattersall's, when one of the clerks told me that a foreign 

 gentleman wished to see me. 



On being introduced to him he asked me, in very imperfect 

 English, whether I would sell a black horse of which, he 

 understood, I was the purchaser in November. I replied 

 in the negative ; giving as my reason that the horse had 

 become clever with hounds, was very fast, and that I had no 

 more hunters than I actually required. 



He then expressed his surprise that " English sportsmen 

 did not know their own horses," and went on to say that 

 this horse was beaten a head only, by Joco, for the Great 

 Metropolitan at Epsom, that he had bought him and taken 

 him to Belgium, and that his name was King Charming. 



Though, naturally, not a little astonished, I did not feel 

 under any obligation to return the horse. 



I hunted him for the rest of the season, and at the end 

 of March, took him straight from the hunting field to 

 Birmingham, where, with nearly thirteen stones on his back, 

 he ran a desperate race — giving two stones and twelve pounds 

 to the winner. 



About a month after this, I sent him again to Tattersall's, 

 where he made two hundred and twenty guineas. 



i6i M 



