We were in the betting-room, and there was Harry Hill, my genial old friend, who had advised me to take care, and never to bet, "because we know our business better than you do." Alas! amidst the hubbub and excitement, to say nothing of the joviality of everybody and the excellence of the champagne, I said in a brave tone,-- "Come now, Mr. Hill, I _must_ have a bet, on the opening of the new Tattersalls. I will give you evens for a fiver on ---- for the Derby!" Alas! my friend, who _ought_ to have known better, forgot the good advice he had given me only a few years before, and I, heedless of consequences in my hilarity, repeated the offer of evens on the _favourite_. "Done!" said two or three, and amongst them Hill. I might have repeated the offer and accepted the bet over and over again, so popular was it. "Done, done, done!" everywhere. But Hill was the man for my money, and he had it. Before morning the _favourite was scratched_! It was the race which Hermit won! Poor Hastings lost heavily and died soon after. I had backed the wrong horse, and have never ceased to wonder how I could have been so foolish. "Let me advise you not to speculate amongst us," were Hill's words, "for if you do we shall beat you;" and it cost me five pounds to learn that. A lawyer's opinion may be worth what is paid for it in a case stated; but of the soundness of of a horse's wind, or the thousand and one ailments to which that animal's flesh and blood are heir, I knew nothing--not so much as the little boy who runs and fetches in the stable, and who could give the ablest lawyer in Great Britain or Ireland odds on any particular favourite's "public form" and beat him. Put not your trust in tipsters; they no more knew that Hermit had a chance for the Derby than they could foretell the snowstorm that was coming to enable him to win it. This was the last bet I ever made; and I owe my abandonment of the practice to Harry Hill, who gave me excellent advice and enforced it by example. CHAPTER XVI. ARISING OUT OF THE "ORSINI AFFAIR." The "Orsini Affair" was one of high treason and murder. It was the attempt on the part of a band of conspirators to murder Napoleon III. In order to accomplish this _political_ object, they exploded a bomb as nearly under his Majesty's carriage as they could manage, but instead of murdering the Emperor they killed a policeman. Orsini was captured, tried, and executed in the good old French fashion. His political career ended with the guillotine--a sharp remedy, but effective, so far as he was concerned. One Dr. Simon Bernard was more fortunate than his principal, for he was in England, the refuge of discontented foreign murderers, who try to do good by stealth, and sometimes feel very uncomfortable when they find that it turns out to be assassination.