Leaving the White Horse, I was followed into Piccadilly by the crowd, until I was forced to take refuge in a hackney chaise.  The noise of the affair had got around town, and I was heartily sorry I had not taken the other and better method of trying conclusions with the duke, and slapped his face.  I found Jack Comyn in Dover Street, and presently Mr. Fox came for us with his chestnuts in his chaise, Fitzpatrick with him.  At Hyde Park Corner there was quite a jam of coaches, chaises, and cabriolets and beribboned phaetons, which made way for us, but kept us busy bowing as we passed among them.  It seemed as if everybody of consequence that I had met in London was gathered there.  One face I missed, and rejoiced that she was absent, for I had a degraded feeling like that of being the favourite in a cudgel-bout.  And the thought that her name was connected with all this made my face twitch.  I heard the people clapping and saw them waving in the carriages as we passed, and some stood forward before the rest in a haphazard way, without rhyme or reason.  Mr. Walpole with Lady Di Beauclerk, and Mr. Storer and Mr. Price and Colonel St. John, and Lord and Lady Carlisle and Lady Ossory.  These I recognized.  Inside, the railing along the row was lined with people.  And there stood Pollux, bridled, with a blanket thrown over his great back and chest, surrounded still by the hunting-frocks, who had followed him from the White Horse.  Mixed in with these, swearing, conjecturing, and betting, were some to surprise me, whose names were connected with every track in England:  the Duke of Grafton and my Lords Sandwich and March and Bolingbroke, and Sir Charles Bunbury, and young Lords Derby and Foley, who, after establishing separate names for folly on the tracks, went into partnership.  My Lord Baltimore descended listlessly from his cabriolet to join the group.  They all sang out when they caught sight of our party, and greeted me with a zeal to carry me off my feet.  And my Lord Sandwich, having done me the honour to lay something very handsome upon me, had his chief jockey on hand to give me some final advice.  I believe I was the coolest of any of them.  And at that time of all others the fact came up to me with irresistible humour that I, a young colonial Whig, who had grown up to detest these people, should be rubbing noses with them.

The duke put in an appearance five minutes before the hour, upon a bay gelding, and attended by Lewis and Sir John Brooke, both mounted.  As a most particular evidence of the detestation in which Chartersea was held, he could find nothing in common with such notorious rakes as March and Sandwich.  And it fell to me to champion these.  After some discussion between Fox and Captain Lewis, March was chosen umpire.  His Lordship took his post in the middle of the Row, drew forth an enamelled repeater from his waistcoat, and mouthed out the conditions of the match,—­the terms, as he said, being private.

“Are you ready, Mr. Carvel?” he asked.