I must be brief, for my minutes are few. Would that you could have seen us going round!--I lying always on his quarter, making a rush whenever I got a bit of ugly ground, and, though barely able to keep up with him, just being near enough to worry him. He wasn't much of a rider, it is true, but he knew quite enough to see that he could run away from me whenever he liked; and so he did when he came to the last turn near home. Off he went at speed, pitching the mud behind him, and making my smart jacket something like a dirty draught-board. It was only by dint of incessant spurring and tremendous punishment that I was able to get inside the distance-post just as the cheering in front announced to me that he had passed the grand stand. _My_ canter in--for I was so dead-beat it was only a canter--was greeted with a universal yell of derision. To have a laugh against the Englishman on a race-course was a national triumph of no mean order. "It was a 'set-off' against Waterloo," George said. In I came, splashed, splattered, and scorned, but not crestfallen, Bob, for one glance at my victorious rival satisfied me that all was safe. The Count was so completely fagged that he could scarcely get down from his horse, and when he did so, he staggered like a drunken man. "Come now, Count, into the scale!" cried Lord George; "show your weight, and let us pay our money!" "I have weighed already," said the other. "I weighed before the start." "Very true," rejoined George, "but let us see that you are the same weight still." It required considerable explanation and argument to show the justice of this proposition, nor was it till a jury of English jocks decided in its favor that the Belgians were convinced. At last he did consent to get into the scale, and to the utter wonderment of all but the few English present, it was discovered that he had lost something like six pounds, and consequently lost the race. It was capital fun to see the consternation of the Belgians at the announcement. They had been betting with such perfect certainty; they had been giving any odds to tempt a wager; and there they were!--"in," as George said, "for a whole pot of money." While they were counting down the cash, too, George kept assuring them that the lesson they had just received was "cheap as dirt;" "that it ought by right to have cost them thousands instead of hundreds, but that we preferred doing the thing in an amicable way." At such times, I must say, George is perfect. He is so cool, so courteous; so apparently serious, too, that even his sharpest cuts seem like civil speeches and kindly counsel. I never admired him more than when, having bought a courier's leather-bag to stuff the gold in, he slung it round his neck, and, taking leave of the party with a polite bow, said,-- "There are times, gentlemen, when one goes all the lighter for a little additional weight!"