In the same year a French cook, in the employ of Lord Gwydir, wagered a considerable sum in the neighbourhood of Lincoln, that he could roll a round piece of wood like a trencher from Grimsthorpe to Bourn, a distance of nearly four miles, church-steeple road, at one hundred starts. The bet having been accepted, the Frenchman had a groove formed round the edge of the wood, and, with the aid of a piece of cord, he accomplished his task in ninety-nine starts. In the same year an ostler of the Dragoon Inn, at Harrowgate, undertook, for a wager of one guinea, to drag a heavy phaeton three times round the race-course there, being nearly four miles, in six hours. He started at six in the evening, and at fifteen minutes to nine he had performed his singular task. In 1812 Scrope Davis, then a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, betted five thousand guineas that he would swim from Eaglehurst, the seat of Lord Cavan, near Southampton Water, to the Isle of Wight. This feat, however, he did not attempt, as he received seven hundred and fifty guineas forfeit from the sporting gentleman with whom he made the wager. Scrope Davis was a particularly cultivated man, who for a time frequented the gaming-table with considerable success. Eventually, however, like the great majority of gamblers, he found himself with little to live upon except his Cambridge fellowship. He retired to Paris and bore his altered fortunes with the greatest philosophy, whilst occupying himself in writing a diary which has unfortunately disappeared. In 1813 another literary man of sporting tendencies--a Mr. Thacker, who had been an assistant master at Rugby--undertook at Lincoln, for a wager of £5, to make two thousand pens in ten hours; this he performed nearly two hours within the time. It was stipulated that they should be well made; and a person was appointed umpire who examined every pen as he made it. The pens were afterwards sold by auction at the Green Dragon, where the bet had been decided. In 1814 a somewhat novel wager was decided in a tavern in the City. Two gentlemen undertook to drink against one another, one to drink wine, and the other water, glass for glass, and he that gave in was to be the loser. They drank the contents of a bottle and a half each, but the wine-drinker was triumphant. The unfortunate water-drinker was afterwards taken ill, being confined to his bed with an attack of the gout.