seven tribes I bid you 'ware of him."

"You have but to ride him with a gold bit, Richard," said Comyn, "and he
is a kitten, I'll warrant."

At that moment Pollux began to rear and kick, so that it took both the
'ostlers to hold him.

"Show him a sovereign," suggested Fox. "How do you feel, Richard?"

"I never feared a horse yet," I said with perfect truth, "nor do I fear
this one, though I know he may kill me."

"I'll lay you twenty pounds you have at least one bone broken, and ten
that you are killed," Baltimore puts in querulously, from the doorway.

"I'll do this, my Lord," I answered. "If I ride him, he is mine. If he
throws me, I give you twenty pounds for him."

The gentlemen laughed, and Baltimore vowed he could sell the horse to
Astley for fifty; that Pollux was the son of Renown, of the Duke of
Kingston's stud, and much more. But Charles rallied him out by a
reference to the debt at quinze, and an appeal to his honour as a
sportsman. And swore he was discouraging one of the prettiest encounters
that would take place in England for many a long day. And so the horse
was sent to the stables of the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly, and
left there at my order.