I believe that I am the only man who has ever ridden a pig down Park Lane. As I was returning home from a dance in the calm of a summer morning, accompanied by a friend, a herd of swine came by, and among them a huge animal trotted pre-eminent. I wagered £5 that I would ride that great pig into Piccadilly; dashed into the herd, took a flying leap upon the pig's back, and galloped all down Park Lane, pursued with shouts by the swineherd. As I turned into Piccadilly, the swineherd caught me a clout on the head, knocking me off my steed. But not before I won my wager.
I was once prettily sold by a sportsman named Doddy Johnson. We were of a party at Maidenhead, and we laid £5 on the winner of a swimming race across the Thames, both to swim in our frock coats and tall hats.
My antagonist and I were to start from a line on the lawn at Skindle's, and the first to get ashore on the opposite bank was to be the winner. I raced down the lawn and plunged in. About half-way across the river, I looked back, and there was Doddy standing on the bank. He had his jest; presumably it was worth a fiver.
One year, three out of four horses in my coach being hunters, I was obliged to start with the leaders, for if I started in the proper way with the wheelers, the off wheeler invariably jumped into her collar and kicked. Being taken to task in the Park one day by a famous four-in-hand driver, who told me I did not know how to start a team, I said to him that as he was an authority on the subject, I should be very grateful if he would be so good as to start my coach for me, and thus to show me how it ought to be done; adding that if the coach were damaged or the horses were injured, he must hold himself responsible.
Gladly accepting these conditions, my friend mounted to the box and settled himself with great nicety and pulled off the leaders. Then he touched the off wheeler with his whip. The next moment she had kicked in the boot, and the leaders started kicking, and both fell—a regular tie-up. The mare capped her hocks and was laid up at a vet's for a week.
I was driving a coach up from Sandown Races along a crowded road, when a most unfortunate accident suddenly exposed me to the fury of the populace. Swinging the whip out in order to catch it up properly, the thong caught under a lady's chignon, and the whip was nearly pulled out of my hand. Chignon and hat came away together and remained dangling. The poor lady must have been sadly hurt. Instantly, of course, I tried to pull up in order to apologise, when the mob rushed to the very unjust conclusion that I had insulted the lady on purpose; there was a deal of shouting, and stones began to fly; the horses were hit and bolted, so that I never had the opportunity of making my apology. The Duke of Portland, Lord Londonderry and Lord Inniskillen were on the coach. We used each of us to horse one coach in stages for the race meetings near London.
Upon another occasion, when I was driving the Prince of Wales on my coach to a meet of the Four-in-Hand Club at the Magazine, Hyde Park, a man who was quite unknown to me shouted,
"'Ullo, Chawley, 'ow are yer? I see you've got 'Wiles' up alongside yer."
"Some of your friends seem very familiar," said the Prince, who took the remark with perfect good-humour.
I once laid a wager that I would drive round Rotten row, an exercise forbidden by the regulations. A party assembled to watch the event; and while they were looking out for me, a man driving the Park water-cart came by and turned the water on them. Then the company, looking closer at the driver, perceived that I had won my bet.