After acknowledging that such an event was perfectly possible, from what I myself had seen of that country, I obtained the following very brief account of my companion's reasons for foreign travel:
"Well, sir," began he, "it is about four months since I brought up to Dublin from Galway a little chesnut mare, with cropped ears and a short tail, square-jointed, and rather low—just what you'd call a smart hack for going to cover with—a lively thing on the road with a light weight. Nobody ever suspected that she was a clean bred thing—own sister to Jenny, that won the Corinthians, and ran second to Giles for the Riddlesworth—but so she was, and a better bred mare never leaped the pound in Ballinasloe. Well, I brought her to Dublin, and used to ride her out two or three times a week, making little matches sometimes to trot—and, for a thorough bred, she was a clipper at trotting—to trot a mile or so on the grass—another day to gallop the length of the nine acres opposite the Lodge—and then sometimes, back her for a ten pound note, to jump the biggest furze bush that could be found—all or which she could do with ease, nobody thinking, all the while, that the cock-tailed pony was out of Scroggins, by a 'Lamplighter mare.' As every fellow that was beat to-day was sure to come back to-morrow, with something better, either of his own or a friend's, I had matches booked for every day in the week—for I always made my little boy that rode, win by half a neck, or a nostril, and so we kept on day after day pocketing from ten to thirty pounds or thereabouts.
"It was mighty pleasant while it lasted, for besides winning the money, I had my own fun laughing at the spoonies that never could book my bets fast enough. Young infantry officers and the junior bar—they were for the most part mighty nice to look at, but very raw about racing. How long I might have gone on in this way I cannot say; but one morning I fell in with a fat, elderly gentleman, in shorts and gaiters, mounted on a dun cob pony, that was very fidgety and hot tempered, and appeared to give the rider a great deal of uneasiness.
"'He's a spicy hack you're on, sir,' said I, 'and has a go in him, I'll be bound.'
"'I rayther think he has,' said the old gentleman, half testily.
"'And can trot a bit, too.'
"'Twelve Irish miles in fifty minutes, with my weight.' Here he looked down at a paunch like a sugar hosghead.
"'Maybe he's not bad across a country,' said I, rather to humour the old fellow, who, I saw, was proud of his poney.
"'I'd like to see his match, that's all.' Here he gave a rather contemptuous glance at my hack.
"Well, one word led to another, and it ended at last in our booking a match, with which one party was no less pleased than the other. It was this: each was to ride his own horse, starting from the school in the Park, round the Fifteen Acres, outside the Monument, and back to the start—just one heat, about a mile and a half—the ground good, and only soft enough. In consideration, however, of his greater weight, I was to give odds in the start; and as we could not well agree on how much, it was at length decided that he was to get away first, and I to follow as fast as I could, after drinking a pewter quart full of Guinness's double stout—droll odds, you'll say, but it was the old fellow's own thought, and as the match was a soft one, I let him have his way.