"Foul, foul--stick against fist--fair play is a jewel," sung out the windmill, whom, it flashed on me at the moment, I had seen before, and suiting the action to the word, he seized him of the black whisker and parrot nose, neck and croup, and pitched him down bodily into the thickest of the troubled waters of the pit, as if he had been a juvenile branch of the grunter family--not pig upon pork, however, but Jew upon Jew, where he floundered on the sea of heads for a minute, like a harpooned whale come to the surface to breathe, and then sank, to have his ribs very sufficiently kneaded by the knees and feet of his rebellious compatriots. Having accomplished this feat, the sailor, as if desirous of escaping observation, slid out of the _mêlée_, and I lost sight of him. The fight continued, but the police were by this time masters; and fortunately we were taken into custody, and bailed by our friends. Next day we escaped with a fine. At breakfast Twig was comforting us. "Poo, poo--never mind--it was all a mistake--all a mistake, you know." "Yes," quoth Don Felix, "but my ribs are not the less sore; no mistake there I assure you." "And the skirts of my coat," said I. But to return to the races. On one occasion, a certain Captain Jack Straw, master of one of the London ships, and the collector of the customs, were two of Flamingo's guests at dinner, and a match was made between them, to come off next morning. It was given out to be a trial of bottom, as they were to ride six times round the race course. Now the latter was a measured mile; a six-mile heat, thought I, in such a climate, and the owners to ride! However, there was nothing more said about it, and I had forgotten it, until Mr Flamingo took me out in his Stanhope at daybreak the next morning to see the racers sweated; and there, the first thing that met our eyes was old Straw sure enough, with his hat tied under his chin by a red bandana, and his trowsers shuffled up to his knees, ambling along mighty fussily, on a great chestnut mare, as unlike a race-horse, as one could well fancy an individual of the same species to be; for although he _appeared_ to be cantering along, the pace was so sluggish, that we passed him easily in a trot. Those who have seen Ducrow in the Tailor riding to Brentford, caprioling on the stage as if he were going fifteen knots an hour, while he never shoots a single fathom a-head, will form a good idea of our friend's appearance and style of locomotion. "Well, Jack," cried Flamingo, "how come you on? who wins?" Here the collector came rattling up astern, deucedly well mounted, standing in his stirrups, his long nose poked between his horse's ears, and riding, regular jockey fashion, without his coat, a handkerchief tied round his head, and his whip crossed in his teeth, and sawing away with his hands. As he passed the old sailor, he pulled up--