104 My First Steeple-chaser. 



occasion, of which none of us had the least idea. A bright-green, 

 long-waisted cutaway, with gilt buttons as big as half-crown 

 pieces, a very staring red plaid waistcoat in the long -approved 

 grooms' style, a pair of bran new white cords and mahogany tops, 

 a yellow belcher neckerchief, and new white hat, which he had 

 decorated in London with a black crape band out of respect to poor 

 Tom, completed a costume which would have shone brilliantly at a 

 country fair. But when I noticed how his clothes hung about 

 him, as if they had been thrown on with a pitchfork, and looked 

 at his broad freckled face, sandy hair and whiskers, and brown, 

 gloveless hands, I fairly groaned in spirit when I reflected that I 

 should have to be leader to such a bear among men who of all 

 others, perhaps, aim at a neat and quiet costume. There was, 

 however, no help for it now, so I just made the best of it, and 

 affected not to hear the remarks which greeted us as we made our 

 appearance again in the passage before the bar. " Halloa, Jennings !" 

 asked one man; "whose colours are bright green and tartan?" 

 " Why, the gentleman has made a mistake, the race does not come 

 off till to-morrow," added another. "Devilish neat style of thing, 

 and by no manes gaudy," drawled out the prince of the Irish 

 steeple-chase jockeys to a friend, as he eyed the burly figure of the 

 Vet. from top to toe. Such were among some of the compliments 

 which fell on my ear. But when I heard one fellow whisper to 

 another " It's the other one's the jockey , him in the green coat's a 

 rich Yorkshire farmer, owner of that lame brown horse standing in 

 No. 10," I took my cue directly, and determined to play second 

 riddle myself, leaving to the Vet. all the arrangements of what 

 promised to be rather an intricate affair. He was immensely 

 gratified when I told him this, and it was quite pleasing to hear 

 him order an ostler to send to him directly the lad who looked 

 after the brown horse in No. 10, and to watch the deferential 

 manner in which the man obeyed him. The old horse seemed to 

 know him again as soon as he entered the box, and testified by a 

 faint neigh his pleasure at seeing him ; but there was evidently one 

 other he missed out of the little group, and that was his favourite 



