Crockford started a house at Newmarket, which became an agreeable resort to those visitors to whom he offered hospitality, and he was no niggard in dispensing the good things of life at his table. Nor did he invite persons to his house so that, when heated with liquor, he might rob them at cards or dice. Crockford was then a betting man and bookmaker, laying or backing as he thought best for his own interest; and his visitors, to use a slang phrase, were "as fly as he was." They were not all spiders who walked into his Newmarket parlour, his visitors were known to have, on many occasions, their pockets well stuffed with crisp Bank of England notes. Another feature of Crockford's behaviour helped him to connection and wealth; when he lost he never required to be asked for money, he was a prompt payer; nor did he, when he was reputed to be rolling in wealth, ever forget himself, he was invariably polite and courteous. The devil, indeed, never was so black as he has been painted, and Crockford, gambler though he was, was not the fiend that some writers described him as being. As well as being a betting man and the keeper of a hell, Crockford was also a keen operator on the Stock Exchange; but on that stage of speculation he generally came to grief, and much of the cash made in St. James's Street was paid away to the stockbrokers. Another branch of turf business which Crockford conducted at one time was that of "squaring" the books of smaller betting men than himself; he could always be relied upon, even at the last moment--that is, immediately before a race--to lay the odds against such horses as a bookmaker was "bad" against, and required therefore to back back again, so as not to run greater risk than was compatible with an honest desire to meet engagements, and pay what was seen to be due after the race was determined. The palatial gaming club erected by Crockford was at one time looked upon as one of the wonders of London; two or three houses had been knocked down to provide a site for it, and no expense was spared to render it commodious and luxurious, and make it attractive to visitors, who were waited upon by footmen in gorgeous liveries, and had their palates tickled by the gastronomic delicacies of Monsieur Ude. There were over eight hundred members, and the house was placed under the management of a committee, to whom Crockford conceded all they asked. Gambling, as a matter of course, was the business or recreation of all who came to the place; figuratively speaking, the rattle of the dice was heard morning, noon, and night, thousands of pounds changing hands as if they were so many halfpence. "Crockford's" cost an enormous sum of money; the building of it, I have been told, was carried on regardless of expense by night as well as by day. All its appointments were sumptuous, the cellars were filled with the finest of wines, and the culinary arrangements were for months the talk of the town.