PARTNERS AND PLUNGERS 39 



;^30,ooo, and when he drove on to the course in his drag with 

 its superb team of browns he raised his white hat ironically 

 to his friends in the grand stand and said, " If Sancho's 

 beat, I hope some of you will take me as coachman," 



It was a splendid race, Sam Chiffney having the mount 

 on Pavilion, and Frank Buckle on Mr Mellish's horse ; but 

 just at the finish Sancho's leg gave way when he looked 

 all over a winner, and Pavilion shot first past the judge's 

 box. After the race the Prince met Mellish on the course, 

 and said, " Mellish, I'm sorry for you." " No, you're not, 

 your Royal Highness, for you've won your money," replied 

 the owner of Sancho, turning on his heel as he spoke. It 

 was even a keener cut for the Prince than when he received 

 the round robin from the Jockey Club, in consequence of 

 which he never again appeared at Newmarket. But such 

 trifles did not weigh long on the philosophic mind of 

 Henry Mellish, and, despite his rudeness to the Regent, he 

 lunched at the Star with the Royal party as calmly as if 

 he had been only losing threepenny points at whist. 



At that time Mr Mellish had as his betting confederate 

 Lord Foley, the son of Charles James Fox's partner, one 

 of the most miserably lean and meagre men ever seen, 

 nicknamed No. ii, from the resemblance which his extra- 

 ordinarily long, thin legs bore to that numeral. 



The two confederates pulled off some big coups together, 

 and on the whole held their own well against the ring, 

 though perhaps not with such success as the Honourable 

 Richard Vernon, commonly called Dick Vernon, who, if 

 we are to believe his biographer, Thomas Holcroft (ex- 

 jockey, and author of that admired comedy The Road to 

 Ruin), was " so adroit in hedging his bets " that he usually 

 made a ;^ 10,000 book, by which " he lost nothing, nor could 

 he in any case have lost anything." But Mellish lived at 

 such a rate that the wealth of Rockefeller could not have 

 stood the strain. He had close upon forty horses in 

 training, seventeen carriage horses, a dozen hunters in 

 Leicestershire, five chargers at Brighton (he was a captain in 

 the lOth Hussars), besides hacks innumerable, and a whole 

 brigade of retainers in his pay, whose crimson liveries alone 

 must have cost him a pretty penny. Then he was also an 



