'OLD dick' VERNON 37 



member. It contains a curious bet made by him ; 

 curious, that is to say, in the sense that one who was 

 then unmarried should have made it on the state of 

 matrimony, into which so many of the young and 

 inexperienced rush without due consideration of the 

 responsibiHties it creates. Indeed, the time-worn 

 advice of ' Mr. Punch ' is quite disregarded. But the 

 bet I am about to recite would have lost much, if 

 not all, its singularity had its maker ever married at 

 any later period. As all the world knows, he never 

 married, though in due course I shall allude to a 

 ' match ' or ' matches,' real or imaginary, that might 

 have taken place. His bet, however, proves that at 

 this period the Earl of March and Kuglen had no 

 idea whatever of becoming a Benedick. The acceptor 

 of the wager was one who afterwards became as 

 shrewd a member of the Turf as his lordship. For 

 what sportsman learned in racing lore does not know 

 the name of ' Old Dick ' Vernon, who appears by the 

 record of the bet to have then earned nicknames, 

 one of which, 'Reynard' or its more simple term, 

 ' the Fox,' is typical of his racing sagacity. But why 

 these should be entered in a bet-book of a club 

 presumed to be an assembly of gentlemen, as if 

 it were an ' Old Bailey ' calendar, the waggery 

 of those times must account for; good-breedinu 



