ULTIMATE FAILURE. 281 



cumstances, either in the training or the misplacing 

 of their horses, most likely in both, their career came 

 to a short and inglorious conclusion, through that 

 never-failing source of disaster, lack of funds. There 

 could scarcely have been found elsewhere three persons 

 together so unfitted for the several parts they had 

 to take in the purchase and management of a racing 

 stud. How limited was their knowledge, may be 

 gathered from what I have related of their previous 

 histories. Besides, their build, in its bulkiness, was 

 against them. They lacked the activity and energy 

 that alone give success to judgment and well-matured 

 plans. Mr. Green took little interest in the manage- 

 ment of the horses, and rarely, if ever, saw them tried. 

 He preferred the comforts of his own fireside, and the 

 solace of a well-replenished snuff-box, to leaving his 

 bed at four o'clock in the morning to see what, he 

 freely confessed, he did not understand and had no 

 taste for. After the death of the other two, Henry 

 Stebbino- trained for Mr. Osbaldeston and others with 



o 



better success, for even in his case I must suppose 

 ' long experience made him sage.' 



We have another similar case in the partnership 

 between Messrs. Barber and Saxon, although it lasted 

 longer, and was on a much larger scale. Where these 

 gentlemen sprang from I have been unable to dis- 

 cover; although it was said, when they first came 

 into notice, that they hailed from ' the black country,' 

 where it is probable they worked in the mines. The}- 



