I shall carry to the grave the memory of the next day.  I was up betimes, and over to the White Horse Cellar to see Pollux groomed, where I found a crowd about the opening into the stable court.  “The young American!” called some one, and to my astonishment and no small annoyance I was greeted with a “Huzzay for you, sir!” “My groat’s on your honour!”

This good-will was owing wholly to the duke’s unpopularity with all classes.  Inside, sporting gentlemen in hunting-frocks of red and green, and velvet visored caps, were shouldering favoured ’ostlers from the different noblemen’s stables; and there was a liberal sprinkling of the characters who attended the cock mains in Drury Lane and at Newmarket.  At the moment of my arrival the head ’ostler was rubbing down the stallion’s flank.

“Here’s ten pounds to ride him, Saunders!” called one of the hunting-frocks.

“Umph!” sniffed the ’ostler; “ride ’im is it, yere honour?  Two hunner beast eno’, an’ a Portugal crown i’ th’ boot.  Sooner take me chaunces o’ Tyburn on ’Ounslow ‘Eath.  An’ Miller waurna able to sit ’im, ’tis no for th’ likes o’ me to try.  Th’ bloody devil took th’ shirt off Teddy’s back this morn.  I adwises th’ young Buckskin t’ order ’s coffin.”  Just then he perceived me, and touched his cap, something abashed.  “With submission, sir, y’r honour’ll take an old man’s adwise an’ not go near ’im.”

Pollux’s appearance, indeed, was not calculated to reassure me.  He looked ugly to exaggeration, his ears laid back and his nostrils as big as crowns, and his teeth bared time and time.  Now and anon an impatient fling of his hoof would make the grooms start away from him.  Since coming to the inn he had been walked a couple of miles each day, with two men with loaded whips to control him.  I was being offered a deal of counsel, when big Mr. Astley came in from Lambeth, and silenced them all.

“These grooms, Mr. Carvel,” he said to me, as we took a bottle in private inside, “these grooms are the very devil for superstition.  And once a horse gets a bad name with them, good-by to him.  Miller knew how to ride, of course, but like many another of them, was too damned over-confident.  I warned him more than once for getting young horses into a fret, and I’m willing to lay a ten-pound note that he angered Pollux.  ’Od’s life!  He is a vicious beast.  So was his father, Culloden, before him.  But here’s luck to you, sir!” says Mr. Astley, tipping his glass; “having seen you ride, egad!  I have put all the money I can afford in your favour.”

Before I left him he had given me several valuable hints as to the manner of managing that kind of a horse:  not to auger him with the spurs unless it became plain that he meant to kill me; to try persuasion first and force afterwards; and secondly, he taught me a little trick of twisting the bit which I have since found very useful.