CHAPTER X. 



"BRICKY " COLLINS — VANDERDECKEN — JAFFIR 



AND ROE. 



Mr. J. P. Collins, to whom I alluded in the last 

 chapter, commenced life as a working brickmaker. 

 Being a man of powerful physique, strong will, and 

 great natural shrewdness, he soon rose among his 

 fellows, and during the Russian war became an over- 

 seer to a gang of navvies in the Crimea, Some time 

 after the fall of Sebastopol, he went out to India, 

 where he soon made himself known as the best brick- 

 maker in the country, and got large contracts in that 

 line of business. He once told me that in his early 

 days he was whip to a pack of Irish fox-hounds, of 

 Avhich Lord Howth, if I remember right, was master. 

 Perhaps it was in that capacity he gained the fine 

 knowledge of horse-flesh which he possessed. As soon 

 as he got on in the world, he commencd racing, and 



