"Lord Rochester. Thought I knew your face. Lost half a quid over your horse runnin' at Gatwood Park last Spring twel' months. 'White Lady' came in second to 'The Nun,' half a quid. I'd made a bit on 'Champane Bottle' in the sellin' plate. Run me eye over the lists and picked out 'White Lady.' Didn't know nothin' abaht her, said to a fren', 'here's my fancy. Don't know nothin' abaht her, but she's one of Lord Rawchester's, an' his horses run stright'--That's what I said--'His horses run stright' and give me a stright run boss with a wooden leg before any of your fliers with a dope in his belly or a pullin' jockey on his back. But the grown' did her, she was beat on the post by haff an 'eck, you'll remember. She'd a won be two lengths, on'y for that bit o' soggy grown' be the post. That grown' want over-haulin', haff a shower o' rain, and boss wants fins and flippers instead o' hoofs." "Yes," said Jones, "that's so." "A few barra' loads o' gravel would put it rite," continued the other, "it ain't fair on the hosses, and it ain't fair on the backers, 'arf a quid I dropped on that mucky bit o' grown'. Last Doncaster meetin' I was sayin' the very same thing to Lor' Lonsdale over the Doncaster Course. I met him, man to man like, outside the ring, and he handed me out a cigar. We talked same as you and me might be talkin' now, and I says to him: 'What we want's more money put into drains on the courses. Look at them mucky farmers they way they drains their land,' said I, 'and look at us runnin' hosses and layin' our bets and let down, hosses and backers and all, for want of the courses bein' looked after proper.'" He tapped the dottle out of his pipe, picked up the bundle, and rose grumbling. Then he led the way in the direction of Northbourne. It was a little after three o'clock now, and the day was sultry. Jones, despite his other troubles, was vastly interested in his companion. The height of Rochester's position had never appeared truly till shown him by the farmer and this tramp. They knew him. To them, without any doubt, the philosophers and poets of the world were unknown, but they knew the Earl of Rochester, and not unfavourably. Millions upon millions of the English world were equally acquainted with his lordship, he was most evidently a National figure. His unconventionality, his "larks," his lavishness, and his horse racing propensities, however they might pain his family, would be meat to the legions who loved a lord, who loved a bet, who loved a horse, and a picturesque spendthrift.