ill for our pains, why we
generally have another building ready to receive us elsewhere for change
of air.'

'This is, I confess, somewhat strange philosophy.'

'To be sure it is, my boy; for it is of pure native manufacture.
Every other people I ever heard of deduce their happiness from their
advantages and prosperity. As we have very little of one or the other,
we extract some fun out of our misfortunes; and, what between laughing
occasionally at ourselves, and sometimes at our neighbours, we push
along through life right merrily after all. So now, then, to apply
my theory: let us see what we can do to make the best of this
disappointment. Shall I make love to Lady Asgill? Shall I quiz Sir
Charles about the review? Or can you suggest anything in the way of a
little extemporaneous devilry, to console us for our disappointment?
But, come along, my boy, we'll take a canter; I want to show you
Moddiridderoo. He improves every day in his training; but they tell me
there is only one man can sit him across a country, a fellow I don't
much fancy, by-the-bye; but the turf, like poverty, leads us to form
somewhat strange acquaintances. Meanwhile, my boy, here come the nags;
and now for the park till dinner.'

During our ride O'Grady informed me that the individual to whom he so
slightly alluded was a Mr. Ulick Burke, a cousin of Miss Bellew. This
individual, who by family and connections was a gentleman, had contrived
by his life and habits to disqualify himself from any title to the
appellation in a very considerable degree. Having squandered the entire
of his patrimony on the turf, he had followed the apparently immutable
law on such occasions, and ended by becoming a hawk, where he had begun
as a pigeon. For many years past he had lived by the exercise of those
most disreputable sources, his own wits. Present at every racecourse
in the kingdom, and provided with that undercurrent of information
obtainable from jockeys and stable-men, he understood all the intrigue,
all the low cunning of the course: he knew when to back the favourite,
when to give, when to take the odds; and, if upon any occasion he was
seen to lay heavily against a well-known horse, the presumption became
a strong one, that he was either 'wrong' or withdrawn. But his
qualifications ended not here; for he was also that singular anomaly in
our social condition--a gentleman-rider, ready upon any occasion to get
into the saddle for any one that engaged his s