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 m