coming out of the Army and Navy Club on the
night before the race, when a shabby-genteel
looking man asked us for charity, saying he had
not the wherewith to pay for a night's lodging.
My companion gave the man a shilling,
and stopped to ask him some questions about
himself. It turned out that this now homeless
being had once been an officer in the army, but
had been ruined in health, pocket, and reputation
by gambling and drink. He told his tale
with considerable shame, but without making
any excuse for himself, and the interview ended
by my relation giving him a sovereign and
telling him to call on him two days later, when
he would try if something could not be done in
the way of permanently assisting him.

The next morning we started for Epsom.
About an hour before the race was to be run,
as I was wandering about amongst the carriages,
I was touched on the arm by the same man who
had begged of us in Piccadilly the night before.
He lifted his hat as respectfully as a groom
would have done, and asked me whether I was a
betting man, "because if you are, sir, and will
follow my advice at once, you may make any
fortune you like to name." I replied that I had
neither money nor head for betting, but that my
companion, who had given him the sovereign
the night before, had a heavy book on the race.
"Well, sir," the man went on, "find out your
friend at once, and tell him to take all the odds
he can get against Merry Monarch. The horse
is now at a hundred to one. Everybody believes
that he is not intended to win, and that his
owner, Mr. Gratwicke, will merely start him to
make the running for his other horse, Doleful.
But I know for a fact that if Merry Monarch
once gets fairly off, they can't help his winning."
The man was so persistent, that I consented
to go and look for my relative, and soon found
him in the betting-ring. At first, he laughed
at my credulity, but was at last persuaded to
risk a hundred pounds on the horse. The odds
against Merry Monarch being at one hundred
to one, in laying out one hundred pounds, my
relation stood a chance of winning ten thousand.
In half an hour the horses had started, Merry
Monarch was in first at the finish, and instead
of being a loser, my relation was a net winner
of eight thousand pounds. But strange to
say, we never saw the shabby man again.
We put several advertisements in the Times
and other papers, stating that if the person
who spoke to two gentlemen in Piccadilly
the night before the Derby, and who the
next day gave them some good advice about
the winning horse on the Downs, would call or
write to such an address, he would hear
something very much to his advantage. These
advertisements were inserted from time to time
for nearly a year, but not a word did we ever
get in reply to them.

I had gone back to India, had remained there
seven or eight years, had served in the Crimea,
had been through a great part of the Indian
mutiny, and had at last sold out of the army,
married, and settled down. My relative had
risen in the service, and was on the staff at
Corfu, where I went out to pass part of the
winter of 1859-60 with him. We then joined in
a yacht voyage to the coast of Syria. By the
time we reached Beyrout we must have been
at least a month behindhand in European news.
Accordingly we sent up our compliments to
Mr. Moore, then the obliging consul-general in
Syria, and asked him if he could lend us any
newspapers. Mr. Moore at once sent us down
a number of Galignanis, and two dozen copies of
the Times, apologising at the same time that
the latter were so old.

It has always been a habit of mine to read
what is called the agony column of the Times.
Following my habit, I was dreamily conning
over that column of a paper at least two months
old, when I came upon the following advertisement:

IF THIS SHOULD MEET THE EYE
of the gentleman who ON THE EVE OF THE
DERBY IN 1845 gave a beggar in Piccadilly a
sovereign, and who followed that beggar's advice
about BACKING MERRY MONARCH, he is requested
to communicate by letter with R. H., at Messrs.
Lincoln and Sons, Solicitors, 101, Gray's Inn,
London.

My relation felt certain that at last it would
be in his power to help a man who had put
so much money into his pocket. He wrote at
once to the address named.

But, as betting-men say, the boot was on the
other leg. Our old pauper acquaintance,
instead of wanting to ask charity, was hoping to
confer another favour upon those who had
saved him from starvation on the eve of the
Derby in 1845. When we got to Malta we
found a long letter waiting for us from Richard
Hutchins, Esq., of Halse Hall, Hants—for such
was his present style and address. It appeared
that the day after the race he actually went to
Lane's Hotel to call on my relative, but finding
that he was not yet up went away, intending
to call again later. But the paper of the
day, contained an advertisement from a gentleman,
who intended to travel and trade in the
Dutch East Indies, wanting a clerk who could
read, write, and speak the language of that country,
as well as French and English. Richard
Hutchins happened to know both Dutch and
French as well as he knew his own tongue. He
applied immediately for the place; and although
he had no reference to give, got the situation at
once, and in twenty-four hours was on his way
to his destination. To provide what was requisite
in the way of outfit, his new master advanced
him twenty pounds, so that he had no need to
ask help from any one. The salary he got was
liberal, his expenses were very small indeed,
and about 1852—just at the time when the
gold-digging mania had broken out in Australia
—he was enabled to emigrate to that colony,
taking with him some five or six hundred pounds
of savings, which he invested in building-
lots in and about Melbourne. Most persons
have heard how property of this sort increased
eighty and a hundred fold in a few months.