He had a very strong tip for the next race, and he was anxious that I should share in any good fortune that might result from backing it. I looked at my card. Among the starters I saw a horse named Tandragee. I said, half in earnest, that, if I had a bet at all, I should back Tandragee. He inquired very anxiously whether I had heard anything. I assured him that I knew nothing whatever, but that the animal bore the name of “Kim” Mandeville’s place in Ireland. Buchanan looked at me reproachfully, as if to suggest that I was treating in a spirit of levity a very serious, and even tragic, business. I made inquiries about Tandragee, and a member of Tattersall’s ring laid me ten to one against it. My horse won easily, and Buchanan’s “certainty,” about which he had only got three to one, was not placed. With the most ordinary care Robert Buchanan should have acquired a nice little fortune. As it was, he lived in a series of financial straits, and when he paid the debt of nature he left all his other debts undischarged. My recollections of race-meetings will always be dominated by the figure of Caroline, Duchess of Montrose. I was young and impressionable when I first saw this formidable _grande dame_. I first beheld her on the lawn at Goodwood. She was accompanied by her husband, Mr. Sterling Crauford, one of the very best and most aristocratic of racing men. Her Grace had a really wonderful vocabulary. She could have debated a point with a bargee starting at even weights. Only once was she talked down. That was by the Thersites of the outer ring—Dick Dunn. This was an Homeric encounter. Rich and rare were the gems in Dick Dunn’s armoury of invective. While the battle lasted, it was a veritable interchange of torpedoes. But the vituperative book-maker won, and the Duchess burst into tears. Caroline, Duchess of Montrose, was once in a towering rage over the defeat of one of her husband’s horses, which she had backed heavily, and, as was her wont, she was violently abusing the unhappy boy who had ridden. I rather think it was little Gallon, but am not sure. “You young rascal!” exclaimed the angry Duchess, “did I not tell you to get through and come right away before reaching the bend?” “Yes, your Grace, you did,” blubbered the boy; “b-b-b-but I couldn’t come without the horse!” When Sterling Crauford died, the Duchess selected as her third husband a youth who might have been her grandson.