"Eleven two," said George; "we 'll say eleven."
The Count weighed eleven stone four, which, with his added weight, brought him to upwards of twelve stone.
"It's exactly as I suspected," whispered George to me. "The Belgian has weighed himself as if he was a gold guinea. He has been so anxious not to give you an ounce too much, that he has outwitted himself. All that you 've to do, Jim, is, ride at him every now and then; tease and worry the fellow wherever you can, and try if you can't take some of that loose flesh off him before it's over."
I saw the scheme at once, Bob. I had nothing whatever to do but to save my distance to win the race; for it was clearly impossible that the Count could go twice round a mile course, and come in as heavy as he started.
I must be brief, for my minutes are few. Would that you could have seen us going round!—I lying always on his quarter, making a rush whenever I got a bit of ugly ground, and, though barely able to keep up with him, just being near enough to worry him. He wasn't much of a rider, it is true, but he knew quite enough to see that he could run away from me whenever he liked; and so he did when he came to the last turn near home. Off he went at speed, pitching the mud behind him, and making my smart jacket something like a dirty draught-board. It was only by dint of incessant spurring and tremendous punishment that I was able to get inside the distance-post just as the cheering in front announced to me that he had passed the grand stand.
My canter in—for I was so dead-beat it was only a canter—was greeted with a universal yell of derision. To have a laugh against the Englishman on a race-course was a national triumph of no mean order. "It was a 'set-off' against Waterloo," George said.
In I came, splashed, splattered, and scorned, but not crestfallen, Bob, for one glance at my victorious rival satisfied me that all was safe. The Count was so completely fagged that he could scarcely get down from his horse, and when he did so, he staggered like a drunken man.
"Come now, Count, into the scale!" cried Lord George; "show your weight, and let us pay our money!"
"I have weighed already," said the other. "I weighed before the start."
"Very true," rejoined George, "but let us see that you are the same weight still."