THE PRINCE'S MAGNETISM 



and shook my hand very warmly. Never in my life 

 have I been put so much at my ease nor treated so 

 splendidly. After all I was only a visiting American, 

 and only a jockey at that^ — although I had been doing 

 so well at my game. 



The Prince asked me a lot of questions. Was I 

 happy? How did I like England? What did I 

 think of the racing, of the grass courses ? Just before 

 I left him — feeling all the time as if I'd like to talk to 

 him the entire afternoon — he said that I should ride 

 for him some time or other, and he gave me time to 

 answer : " It would be a pride and honour to do so." 



There were several other opportunities of meeting 

 and talking to that great kind big-hearted man. I 

 used to think to myself how pleased they would be at 

 home and how they would ask me all about it, and 

 what the American papers would say. I can tell you 

 that although I come from democratic America, there 

 was a wonderful impression left on me by the great 

 personal attraction of that royal gentleman. It sort 

 of drew me to him in the same way that a magnetic 

 crane in all its strength will pick up scrap iron. I 

 don't mean to say I came off the scrap heap ! But 

 perhaps many can understand the different emotions 

 I had then and after when thinking of that presenta- 

 tion. The impression never seemed to wear off either 

 even when he spoke to me again — as he did frequently. 



One day he told me that he was no gambler, and 

 that as a rule he hardly ever had more on a horse than 

 twenty-five pounds, but that he used to make an 

 exception and risk a couple of hundred on anything 

 that I was riding and that I told him I thought would 

 win. 



I remember once — it was the last race of the 

 year at the Newmarket meetings — I was riding a horse 



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