10 'OLD Q' 



This, however, must not be taken to show that 

 his lordship was uneducated, but simply to assert 

 that, having made acquaintance with the proverbial 

 ' three R's,' combined with the elements of a classical 

 course, also the ' mincing ' of French, he was left to 

 complete his education in that ahna mater to which 

 his birth and rank admitted him — Society. 



The allurements of the Northern capital appeased his 

 lordship's propensities for a time. To be true to his 

 role, one study he entered upon — of which books never 

 did nor can impart true knowledge — was the ' free- 

 masonry ' of the Turf It is a matter for surprise how, 

 or by whom, his initiation was performed, as ' Auld 

 Reekie ' was then, as it is now, sternly respectable in 

 all appertaining to the * sport of kings.' Nevertheless, 

 the young Earl contrived to learn something of the 

 ' craft,' and a very ' canny ' something, too, of the 

 ' Southron's ' chief pastime. That his knowledge was 

 sound will be proved beyond doubt, as, when he first 

 put in an appearance at Newmarket, he was found 

 less vulnerable than Achilles in the racing novice's 

 most tender part — his pocket. 



So far, the Earl of March was inclined to become 

 a ' man of the world,' and ' worldly ' he was to the 

 close of his days. Then, as now, marriageable peers 

 were as 'marketable' as heiresses of the bourgeois 



