Mr. Reginald Herbert 



was really remarkable ; and it is tolerably certain that but for 

 this disadvantage he would have remained in the saddle longer 

 than was the case. 



When a man has a lot of irons in the fire at one and the 

 same time, he is more often than not, and probably with truth, 

 described as "Jack of all trades and master of none." This, 

 however, can never be applied to " Reggie" Herbert, of whom 

 it may safely be said that, whatever he has undertaken he has 

 invariably done well ; in short, a better specimen of what is 

 termed an " all-round man " than the versatile gentleman who 

 forms the subject of this chapter it would be hard to find. 



Hunting, race riding — both on the flat and over a country — 

 pigeon shooting (he won the Prix de I'Empereur in Paris, the 

 first pigeon shooting prize ever shot for, the " Prix de Madrid " 

 at Monte Carlo, and beat Mr. Lorillard for ^500 a side at 

 Hurlingham), driving, and polo — nothing came amiss to him. 



Somewhere in the seventies, "Reggie" Herbert and his 

 friend " Chicken " Hartopp conceived the brilliant idea of 

 running a midnight coach from Piccadilly to Aldershot and 

 back during the season, starting at the "witching hour of 

 night" from Brandon's Cigar Divan in Piccadilly, and the 

 story " Reggie " has to tell of how the representative of the 

 Press laid on for the occasion to write a description of 

 the initial journey arrived in such a state of non compos that 

 he had to be placed inside, to the intense indignation of 

 the "Chicken," who avowed his intention of dropping the 

 offending soul into the first convenient pond they came to, 

 and of their mutual astonishment the following morning, on 

 taking up the paper, instead of nothing, as they expected, 

 to find the drive to Aldershot described at length with an 

 accuracy and wealth of colour hardly credible under the cir- 

 cumstances, would make a cat laugh, as the saying is. 



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