by which the beasts of the race-track, like the
beasts of love, are set out and beautified. In the
bar-rooms he knew important jockeys, celebrated
trainers, and the big-bellied baronets, and blackleg
dukes and bums, who are the cream of this muck-
heap and the flower of this horse-dung. Edgar
would have liked to become a jockey, for he soon
saw all the tricks that could be played and the
money that could be made. But he had grown too
large. Though his legs had remained thin and
bowed, he had acquired something of a corporation.
He was too heavy. So, being unable to don the
jockey’s coat, he decided to wear the coachman’s
livery.
To-day Edgar is forty-three years old. He is one of the five or six English, Italian, and French stud-grooms of whom they talk in elegant society with wondering admiration. His name triumphs in the sporting papers, and even in the paragraphs of the society and literary journals. The baron de Borgsheim, his present master, is proud of him,—more proud of him than he would be of a financial operation that had ruined a hundred thousand janitors. Swelling up with an air of definitive superiority, he says: "My stud-groom! " as a collector of pictures would say: "My Rubens!" And, in fact, the lucky baron has reason to be proud, for, since he came into possession of Edgar, he has made great strides in fame
