The Life of Fred Archer 223 
only time that the great jockey ever mounted a horse in this 
country, and the beast he rode was a splendid-looking thorough- 
bred stallion called Pet Bud. 
"As we walked our horses out of the Park, and into Fifth 
Avenue, hoping to direct his thoughts from his great trouble 
by talking about himself, I said to him : ' Fred, I should think 
you must sometimes feel tremendously proud and elated over 
your success and at the fact that you are a very great and 
important man in this world. It's a wonder that it has not 
utterly spoiled you, and made you a very disagreeable person, 
instead of the modest, unassuming man that you really are.' 
" Turning in his saddle, face-to-face, he replied : ' No, you 
would be surprised how little I think of it all in that way. 
My hfe has not been a very long one, you know, and naturally 
I am gratified and thankful at my good fortune, or luck it 
may be. Sometimes, when thinking it all over, I have thought 
to myself that it is only that I have been luckier than some of 
the other poor lads, who, very likely, would have been just as 
good as I am, if they had had the same chances. That's about 
all the patting on the back I ever give myself.' 
" ' To tell you the truth,' he continued, ' I am so thoroughly 
wrapped up in racing, my mind is so entirely upon it, that I 
really never think of anything else, not even of where I am, 
and of what is going around me as I travel about from place 
to place.' 
" He turned away, and nothing was said for several minutes, 
but his face assumed a most pitifully sad expression, and he 
went on : ' Ah, well, what does it all amount to after all ? 
It's all nothing to me now. Poor Nellie ! She was my glory, 
my pride, my life, my all, and she was taken from me at the 
very moment that my happiness did really seem to me to be 
so great and complete as to leave nothing else in this world 
that I could wish for. 
" ' But the next moment ! What a change ! Then there 
was but one thing in the world that I wanted, and I would 
