French rogues, I remark, come from the South of
France,--that he had once held a high diplomatic rank, from which, in
consequence of the fall of a ministry, he was degraded, and, after many
vicissitudes of fortune, he had become Consul-General at Campecho. "My
friends," continued he, "are now looking up again in the world, so that
I entertain hopes of something better than perpetual banishment."

Of English people, their habits, modes of life, and thought, the
Chevalier spoke to me with a freedom he never would have used if he
had not believed me to be a Spaniard, and only connected with Ireland
through the remote chain of ancestry. This deceit of mine was one he
never penetrated, and I often thought over the fact with satisfaction.
To encourage his frankness on the subject of my country, I affected to
know nothing, or next to nothing, of England; and gradually he grew to
be more communicative, and at last spoke with an unguarded freedom which
soon opened to me a clew of his real history.

It was one day as we walked the deck together that, after discussing the
tastes and pursuits of the wealthy English, he began to talk of their
passion for sport, and especially horse-racing. The character of this
national pastime he appeared to understand perfectly, not as a
mere foreigner who had witnessed a Derby or a Doncaster, but as one
conversant with the traditions of the turf or the private life of the
jockey and the trainer.

I saw that he colored all his descriptions with a tint meant to excite
an interest within me for these sports. He drew a picture of an "Ascot
meeting," wherein were assembled all the ingredients that could excite
the curiosity and gratify the ambition of a wealthy, high-spirited
youth; and he dilated with enthusiasm upon his own first impressions of
these scenes, mingled with half-regrets of how many of his once friends
had quitted the "Turf" since he last saw it!

He spoke familiarly of those whose names I had often read in newspapers
as the great leaders of the "sporting world," and affected to have known
them all on terms of intimacy and friendship. Even had the theme been
less attractive to me, I would have encouraged it for other reasons, a
strange glimmering suspicion ever haunting my mind that I had heard of
the worthy Chevalier before, and under another title; and so completely
had this idea gained possession of me that I could think of nothing
else.

At length, after we had been some weeks