a look at it. He was only forty when it was done, and you're
very like him; the cut of the jib is there.' He took my hand. 'Good-bye,
dear lad,' he said; 'we'll meet-yes, we'll meet often enough if you
are like your grandfather. And I'll always like to see you,' he added
generously.

"'I always wanted to meet you,' I answered. 'I've cut your pictures out
of the papers to keep them--at Eton and Oxford.' He laughed in great
good-humour and pride. 'So so, so so, and I am a hero then, with one
follower! Well, well, dear lad, I don't often go wrong, or anyhow I'm
oftener right than wrong, and you might do worse than follow me--but no,
I don't want that responsibility. Go on your own--go on your own.'

"A minute more and he was gone with a wave of the hand, and in
excitement I picked up the betting-book. It almost took my breath away.
He had staked a thousand pounds that the favourite of the Derby would
not win the race, and that one of three outsiders would. As I sat
overpowered by the magnitude of the bet the door opened, and he appeared
with another man, not one with whose face I was then familiar, though as
a duke and owner of great possessions, he was familiar to society. 'I've
put it down,' he said. 'Sign it, if it's all in order.' This the duke
did, after apologizing for disturbing me. He looked at me keenly as
he turned away. 'Not the most elevating literature in the library,'
he said, smiling ironically. 'If you haven't got a taste for it beyond
control, don't cultivate it.' He nodded kindly, and left; and again,
till my father came and found me, I buried myself in that book of
fate--to me. I found many entries in my grandfather's name, but not one
in my father's name. I have an idea that when a vice or virtue skips
one generation, it appears with increased violence or persistence in the
next, for, passing over my father into my defenceless breast, the spirit
of sport went mad in me--or almost so. No miser ever had a more cheerful
and happy hour than I had as I read the betting-book at Thwaites'.

"I became a member of Thwaite's soon after I left Oxford. As some men go
to the Temple, some to the Stock Exchange, some to Parliament, I went to
Thwaite's. It was the centre of my interest, and I took chambers in Park
Place, St. James's Street, a few steps away. Here I met again constantly
the great sportsman who had noticed me so kindly, and I became his
follower, his disciple. I had started with him on a wave of prejudi