I enter into these apparently trifling details because they all help to make up the sum and substance of the deadly consequences to follow,--and also because I wish to emphasize the fact that in my actions I only imitated the example of my compeers. Most rich men to-day follow the same course as I did,--and active personal good to the community is wrought by very few of them. No great deed of generosity illumines our annals. Royalty itself leads no fashion in this,--the royal gifts of game and cast-off clothing sent to our hospitals are too slight and conventional to carry weight. The 'entertainments for the poor' got up by some of the aristocrats at the East end, are nothing, and less than nothing. They are weak sops to our tame 'lion couchant' offered in doubtful fear and trembling. For our lion is wakeful and somewhat restive,--there is no knowing what may happen if the original ferocity of the beast is roused. A few of our over-rich men might considerably ease the load of cruel poverty in many quarters of the metropolis if they united themselves with a noble unselfishness in the strong and determined effort to do so, and eschewed red-tapeism and wordy argument. But they remain inert;--spending solely on their own personal gratification and amusement,--and meanwhile there are dark signs of trouble brooding. The poor, as the lean and anxious curate said, will not always be patient! I must not here forget to mention, that through some secret management of Rimânez, my name, much to my own surprise, appeared on the list of competitors for the Derby. How, at so late an hour, this had been effected, I knew no more than where my horse 'Phosphor' came from. It was a superb animal, but Rimânez, whose gift to me it was, warned me to be careful as to the character of the persons admitted into the stables to view it, and to allow no one but the horse's own two attendants to linger near it long on any pretext. Speculation was very rife as to what 'Phosphor's' capabilities really were; the grooms never showed him off to advantage during exercise. I was amazed when Lucio told me his man Amiel would be the jockey. "Good heavens!--not possible!" I exclaimed. "Can he ride?" "Like the very devil!"--responded my friend with a smile: "He will ride 'Phosphor' to the winning-post."