At that time, I used to ride steeple-chases whenever I had an opportunity, and kept myself in regular training by hard exercise; a habit which on one occasion involved the commander-in-chief in an alarming rumour. It arose from the trifling circumstance that I had borrowed his overcoat. The Fleet was at Holyhead, to celebrate the opening of the new breakwater by the Prince of Wales; I was just going for a training run up and down that breakwater, when, finding I had no coat, I took Sir Harry Keppel's uniform overcoat. I took it, without thinking, merely because I wanted it. The next thing that happened was that the signalmen in the Fleet reported that the Admiral must have gone mad on the breakwater, seeing that he was racing up and down it clad in a shooting-cap, grey trousers, muffler and uniform overcoat. As my face was almost hidden by cap and muffler, the signalmen were deceived by the gold lace, took me for the admiral, and thought that poor Sir Harry was smitten with insanity.
We used to hunt a good deal with the Dartmoor hounds; and upon a day when there was no run, and everyone was bored, one of the ladies present begged me to provide some kind of sport, kindly suggesting that I should personate the fox, a part I declined.
"You _must_ do something to amuse us," she said.
Among the officers there were an elderly admiral and an elderly general, and I pointed them out to the lady.
"I will get up a race between the two of them," said I.
She bet me I would not, and I took it. I began with the soldier.
Ambling alongside the general, I asked him casually if he had ridden much in his life.
"Of course I have," says he irritably. "What do you mean, sir?"
"Nothing at all," says I. "I thought I would ask. The admiral----"
"What about the admiral?" cries the general, staring suspiciously at the distant and unconscious officer.
"He was saying he didn't think you knew very much about a horse."
The general lost his temper. He swore. He said he would show the admiral what he knew about a horse.
"You can easily prove it," said I; and before he understood what was happening, he had agreed to ride a race. Then I went over to the admiral.
"Do you know what the general says? He says you look like a monkey on a horse," said I; and it was the admiral's turn to swear.