really heart-breaking to hear what the world
had lost in public and private virtues, all for Lackington's indolence
and folly.

"He never gave me a chance, sir,--not one chance," would he say. "Why,
he knows Palmerston just as well as I know you; he can talk to Lord
Derby as freely as I am speaking at this minute; and, would you believe
it? he wouldn't say, 'There's Annesley--my brother Annesley--wants
that commissionership or that secretary's place. Annesley 's a devilish
clever fellow,--up to a thing or two,--ask Grog Davis if he ain't. Just
try to get between him and the ropes, that's all; see if he does n't
sleep with one eye open. 'Do you tell me there's one of them would
refuse him? Grog said to his face, at Epsom Downs, the morning Crocus
was scratched, 'My Lord,' says he, 'take all you can get upon Annesley;
make your book on him; he's the best horse in your lot, and it's Grog
Davis says it.'"

Very true was it that Grog Davis said so. Nay, to enjoy the pleasure
of hearing him so discourse was about the greatest gratification of
Annesley Beecher's present life. He was poor and discredited. The Turf
Club would not have him; he durst not show at Tattersall's. Few would
dine, none discount him; and yet that one man's estimate of his gifts
sustained him through all. "If Grog be right--and he ought to be, seeing
that a more dodgy, crafty fellow never lived--I shall come all round
again. He that never backed the wrong horse could n't be far astray
about men. He thinks I've running in me yet; _he_ sees that I 'll come
out one of these days in top condition, and show my number from the
stand-house." To have had the greatest opinion in Equity favorable to
your cause in Chancery, to have known that Thesiger or Kelly said
your case was safe, to learn that Faraday had pronounced your analysis
correct, or White, of Cowes, had approved of the lines of your new
yacht,--would any of them be very reassuring sensations; and yet were
they as nothing to the unbounded confidence imparted to Beecher's mind
by the encouraging opinion of his friend Grog Davis. It is only justice
to say that Beecher's estimate of Davis was a feeling totally free
of all the base alloy of any self-interest. With all Grog's great
abilities, with talents of the very highest order, he was the reverse
of a successful man. Trainer, auctioneer, sporting character, pugilist,
publican, and hell-keeper, he had been always unlucky. He had his share
of good thing