Did you ever Drive a Jibber down to a Fight ? 261 



use of them ?" was the motto which he never failed to act up to. 

 No man had a better opinion of himself. " If / say so, it was so !" 

 used to be his invariable answer, if by chance he had been describing 

 a race to you, and you happened to hint that one of the very 

 jockeys who had ridden in it had given you quite a different version 

 of the affair just before. He used to boast (what I believe was 

 true) that he could travel to every race meeting in England without 

 spending a shilling for "the wear and tear of his teeth j" and as, to 

 use an expression of his own, he was " no bread and cheese man," 

 this was a matter of some little consequence to him. There was 

 not a town in England which owned a racecourse where the 

 " Capten" had not a friend in some sporting farmer in the immediate 

 neighbourhood ; and as he could sing a good song, tell the best of 

 stories, and as his presence always shed a cheerful ray of light upon 

 any company, he was welcome wherever he came. He rarely 

 stayed in a town, and would have made no exception in this 

 instance j but he had to meet a man in Cambridge that night to 

 settle some money matters with, so had driven up expressly from 

 Newmarket after the day's racing was over. 



I soon told him what my errand was, and directly he found out I 

 had hired a horse, he proposed that, instead of my riding down, as I 

 intended, we should put it into his new dog-cart (which, by the way, 

 he had just taken for a bad debt), he would be coachman, and we 

 would toddle down to Littlebury to breakfast, as comfortable as could 

 be see the fight, and return to Cambridge in the afternoon. There 

 was nothing coming off at Newmarket next day which he cared 

 about seeing j moreover, a day's rest, as he said, would do his cob no 

 harm, and besides which, he had a great desire to see the " mill" as he 

 termed it. I had not the least objection to make to the proposed 

 arrangement : in fact, his company was a treat at all times j and as 

 he knew a great deal more both of sporting men and sporting life 

 than I did, I felt rather flattered by his patronage than otherwise. 



I went down soon after to the stable to see my horse suppered- 

 up, and to tell the ostler the arrangements for the morning; besides, 

 to know if he had any objection to substitute the dog-cart for the 



