cut of the jib is there.' He took my hand. 'Good-bye, dear lad,' he
said; 'we'll meet-yes, we'll meet often enough if you are like your
grandfather. And I'll always like to see you,' he added generously.

"'I always wanted to meet you,' I answered. 'I've cut your pictures out
of the papers to keep them--at Eton and Oxford.' He laughed in great
good-humour and pride. 'So so, so so, and I am a hero then, with one
follower! Well, well, dear lad, I don't often go wrong, or anyhow I'm
oftener right than wrong, and you might do worse than follow me--but no,
I don't want that responsibility. Go on your own--go on your own.'

"A minute more and he was gone with a wave of the hand, and in excitement
I picked up the betting-book. It almost took my breath away. He had
staked a thousand pounds that the favourite of the Derby would not win
the race, and that one of three outsiders would. As I sat overpowered by
the magnitude of the bet the door opened, and he appeared with another
man, not one with whose face I was then familiar, though as a duke and
owner of great possessions, he was familiar to society. 'I've put it
down,' he said. 'Sign it, if it's all in order.' This the duke did,
after apologizing for disturbing me. He looked at me keenly as he turned
away. 'Not the most elevating literature in the library,' he said,
smiling ironically. 'If you haven't got a taste for it beyond control,
don't cultivate it.' He nodded kindly, and left; and again, till my
father came and found me, I buried myself in that book of fate--to me.
I found many entries in my grandfather's name, but not one in my father's
name. I have an idea that when a vice or virtue skips one generation, it
appears with increased violence or persistence in the next, for, passing
over my father into my defenceless breast, the spirit of sport went mad
in me--or almost so. No miser ever had a more cheerful and happy hour
than I had as I read the betting-book at Thwaites'.