poor horse; he wants a lot of looking after, and I shouldn't think of
buying him except for the sake of seeing what I could do with him, for
I am not fond of lumber, Mr. Hawkins--I don't care for lumber."

It was straightforward, but I did not at the time see his depth of
feeling. He was evidently intending to buy him out of compassion, as
he had some knowledge of his ancestors. But I stuck to my fifteen
pounds hard and fast, and at last he said, "Well, Mr. Hawkins, I'll
give you all you ask, if so be you'll throw in the saddle and bridle!"

I was tired of the negotiations, and yielded; so away went poor
Dreadnought with his saddle and bridle, never for me to look on again.
I was sorry to part with him, and the more so because his life had
been unfortunate. But I was deceived in him as well as in his new
master. From me he had concealed his merits, only to reveal them, as
is often the case with latent genius, when some accidental opportunity
offered.

At that time Bromley in Kent was a central attraction for a great many
second-class patrons of the sporting world. I know little about the
events that were negotiated at Bromley and other small places of
the kind, but there was, as I have been informed, a good deal of
blackguardism and pickpocketing on its course and in its little
primitive streets--lucky if you came out of them with only one black
eye. They would steal the teeth out of your mouth if you did not keep
it shut and your eyes open.

However, Bromley races came on some time after the sale of my
Dreadnought.... The next morning my groom came with a look of
astonishment that seemed to have kept him awake all night, and said,--

"You'll be surprised to hear, sir, that our 'oss has won a fifty-pound
prize at Bromley, and a pot of money besides in bets for his owner."

"Won a prize!" said I. "Was it by standing on his head?"

"Won a _race_, sir."

"Then it must have been a walk-over."

"Oh no, sir; he beat the cracks, beat the favourites, and took in all
the knowing ones. I always said there was something about that there
'oss, sir, that I didn't understand and nobody couldn't understand,
sir."

I was absolutely dumbfounded, knowing very little about "favourites"
or "cracks." My groom I knew I could rely upon, for he always seemed
to be the very soul of honour. I thought at first he might have been
misled in some Bromley taproom, but afterwards found that it was all
true--he had heard it from the owner