Upon leaving the theatre I became so thoroughly distracted that I scarcely knew what I was about; unluckily a young horse, who was a little skittish, had on that evening taken the place of the one that I had been in the habit of driving, and, as there was an unusual crowd in the streets, extra care was necessary. "With great difficulty I threaded my way through carriages of all descriptions, and was approaching the Rue de Rivoli when I heard a clattering of horses' hoofs behind me and the cheers of some hundreds of people assembled near the entrance to the Palace of the Tuileries. "It is the King returning from the Louvre, where His Majesty has been dining with the Duke d'Orléans," said my companion. At that moment my thoughts were entirely engrossed with Elmore, and I was rehearsing to myself how I should break the untoward news of the accident to the Duke. So, instead of pulling the left rein to enable the royal cortége and the cavalry escort to pass me, I pulled the right one, and very nearly brought my chief to grief. Happily, however, at this moment the only damage done was to the leg of a mounted police officer, who soundly rated me in language unfit to be repeated. Misfortunes they say never come singly; we had not proceeded many yards, when a _gamin_, who had evidently a taste for pyrotechnic exhibitions, let off a cracker, which so frightened the animal I was driving that he bolted across the street, came in contact with a lamp-post, and as near as possible upset the cabriolet. What made it appear worse was that the escort above referred to was returning at a brisk trot to their barracks, and, had we been overturned, the Duke might, for the first time in his military career, have been trampled upon by French cavalry. "Lucky escape!" was the only remark Wellington made, and as the danger to which I had exposed him had completely roused me from my lethargy, I at once "screwed my courage to the sticking place" and told the whole of my day's adventures with the hounds. "Can't be helped," said he, in his usual quick manner; "accidents will happen." Upon the following morning my worst fears were realised; Elmore was dead lame; and when I reported this to his Grace, his only answer was, "I cannot afford to run the chance of losing my best horses; so, in future, you shall have the brown horse and the chestnut mare, and if you knock them up you must mount yourself." In a previous chapter I have referred to a carriage accident that occurred to Wellington when I was with him; and it is somewhat strange that I should again be by his side, and in a great measure the cause of a second misfortune.