“‘He’s a spicy hack you’re on, sir,’ said I, ’and has a go in him, I’ll be bound.’

“‘I rayther think he has,’ said the old gentleman, half testily.

“‘And can trot a bit, too.’

“‘Twelve Irish miles in fifty minutes, with my weight.’  Here he looked down at a paunch like a sugar hosghead.

“‘Maybe he’s not bad across a country,’ said I, rather to humour the old fellow, who, I saw, was proud of his poney.

“‘I’d like to see his match, that’s all.’  Here he gave a rather contemptuous glance at my hack.

“Well, one word led to another, and it ended at last in our booking a match, with which one party was no less pleased than the other.  It was this:  each was to ride his own horse, starting from the school in the Park, round the Fifteen Acres, outside the Monument, and back to the start—­just one heat, about a mile and a half—­the ground good, and only soft enough.  In consideration, however, of his greater weight, I was to give odds in the start; and as we could not well agree on how much, it was at length decided that he was to get away first, and I to follow as fast as I could, after drinking a pewter quart full of Guinness’s double stout—­droll odds, you’ll say, but it was the old fellow’s own thought, and as the match was a soft one, I let him have his way.

“The next morning the Phoenix was crowded as if for a review.  There were all the Dublin notorieties, swarming in barouches, and tilburies, and outside jaunting-cars—­smart clerks in the post-office, mounted upon kicking devils from Dycer’s and Lalouette’s stables—­attorney’s wives and daughters from York-street, and a stray doctor or so on a hack that looked as if it had been lectured on for the six winter months at the College of Surgeons.  My antagonist was half an hour late, which time I occupied in booking bets on every side of me—­offering odds of ten, fifteen, and at last, to tempt the people, twenty-five to one against the dun.  At last, the fat gentleman came up on a jaunting-car, followed by a groom leading the cob.  I wish you heard the cheer that greeted him on his arrival, for it appeared he was a well-known character in town, and much in favour with the mob.  When he got off the car, he bundled into a tent, followed by a few of his friends, where they remained for about five minutes, at the end of which he came out in full racing costume —­blue and yellow striped jacket, blue cap and leathers—­looking as funny a figure as ever you set eyes upon.  I now thought it time to throw off my white surtout, and show out in pink and orange, the colours I had been winning in for two months past.  While some of the party were sent on to station themselves at different places round the Fifteen Acres, to mark out the course, my fat friend was assisted into his saddle, and gave a short preliminary gallop of a hundred yards or so, that set us all a-laughing.  The odds were now fifty to one in my favour, and I gave