him by the head, and sent a squirt of brandy up
each nostril; I squirted the rest down his throat, went back to the
table, swallowed half a tumbler of curacoa or something, and was into
the trap and off again, the whole thing not taking more than twenty
seconds.

The business began to be pretty exciting after that. You can see four
miles straight ahead of you on that road; and that day the police had
special orders to keep it clear, so that it was a perfectly blank,
white stretch as far as I could see. You know how one never seems to get
any nearer to things on a road like that, and there was the clock
hanging opposite to me on the splash board; I couldn't look at it, but I
could hear its beastly click-click through the trotting of the pony, and
that was nearly as bad as seeing the minute hand going from pip to pip.
But, by George, I pretty soon heard a worse kind of noise than that. It
was a case of preserve me from my friends. The people who had gone out
to Sufter Jung's tomb on horseback to meet me, thought it would be a
capital plan to come along after me and see the fun, and encourage me a
bit--so they told me afterwards. The way they encouraged me was by
galloping till they picked me up, and then hammering along behind me
like a troop of cavalry till it was all I could do to keep the pony from
breaking.

"You've got to win, Paddy," calls out Mrs. Harry Le Bretton, galloping
up alongside, "you promised you would!"

Mrs. Harry and I were great friends in those days--very sporting little
woman, nearly as keen about the match as I was--but at that moment I
couldn't pick my words.

"Keep back!" I shouted to her; "keep back, for pity's sake!"

It was too late--the next instant the pony was galloping. The penalty is
that you have to pull up, and make the wheels turn in the opposite
direction, and I just threw the pony on his haunches. He nearly came
back into the cart, but the tremendous jerk gave the backward turn to
the wheels and I was off again. Not even that kept the people back. Mrs.
Le Bretton came alongside again to say something else to me, and I
suddenly felt half mad from the clatter and the frightful strain of the
pony on my arms.

"D----n it all! Le Bretton!" I yelled, as the pony broke for the second
time, "can't you keep your wife away!"

They did let me alone after that--turned off the road and took a scoop
across the plain, so as to come up with me at the finish--and I pulled
myself together to