problem many gallant, and at first well-meaning, youths have to solve:with what ruinous, despairful results, let clergymen with sequestered livings, let sisters robbed of their portions, let defrauded tailors, and usurers frantic at being "done,"-"by such a good man, too, as every body thought him," wheezes Ephraim Tigg the Rasper,-let swindled hotelkeepers and billiard-markers with tremendous scores unpaid, essay to tell. Shall not a place be found, too, for the sporting Government clerks, and stockbrokers, and rich young tradesmen, just a step lower in the hierarchy of "swelldom," who are at all the races, and bet, and drink, and "carry on," as the phrase is, but who seldom come to such desperate grief as their more aristocratic competitors, for the simple reason that they have not so far to fall, and have a way of letting the mud into which they have fallen dry, and then rubbing it off with a will? Many more young sparks of the sporting world might I descant upon; but they are cheaper swells: they don't patronise the Grand Stand; they come down by the rail, and not in four-in-hands, or even Hansom cabs; and their losses and winnings are on a scale not at all pretentious. But there must not be passed over a variety of the genuine “swell” tribe,-noble in birth often, generally affluent, at least, in means,—the only remnant we possess, in this hard-working age,—when almost every man, high or low, prince or peasant, does something, whether it be for good or evil,-of the "dandies" of by-gone times. They are growing rarer every day, like that intolerable old (and young) nuisance,—the "gent," who has been all but absorbed by the Volunteer Movement; but you may still see the perfectly listless, do-nothing, care-for-nothing-I trust not good-for-nothing; and yet what is he good for?-dandy in the Grand Stand on a great race-day. He is always exquisitely dressed; his hair and appendages are marvels of Truefitism. His jewellery is resplendent; his linen irreproachable. He carries, wet or dry, a slim umbrella. Mr. John Leech has drawn him in Punch five hundred times. I wish that he could fix him to a woodblock, so that he pervaded society no longer. He smokes as he talks, in a languid, drawling kind of way, and wastes half of his weeds, as he wastes half of his words. He never knows what to do with his legs. He does know what to do with his hands, and thrusts them, nearly up to the elbows, into his pockets. He comes to the "races" in the most elaborate equipage and costume attainable, simply because it is "the thing." He does not bet. It is a bore to bet. The men in his set don't bet. He is quite unsusceptible to the excitement of the race, and has just completed the leisurely adjustment of his eye-glass by the time the winning horse has passed the post. He does not even take much interest in the brilliant ladies in the carriages outside, save to remark to a friend and duplicate that he has seen Baby Molyneux, or Ada Tressilian (née Runt), and that "she looks older." He does not in the least understand the rude witticisms of the road homewards; and at a handful of salt more or less attic being flung at him, returns a look of such calm bewilderment as to disarm the most practised "chaffer." He has been known to take more champagne than was good for him, and to have gone to the length of assuming a false nose at the Cock at Sutton; but he goes to sleep when tipsy: there are always, at least, seven dandies as solemn as he to take care of him, and he comes to no harm. He never comes to any good. The age of this silent, languid dandy is from twenty-five to thirty. I want to know what becomes of him when he reaches middle age, or approaches fogeyism. Does he emigrate? Does he enlist? Does he expire from pure inanition? Does he take heart of grace and hit somebody, or do something, and approve himself a Man? Even girls who are worth any thing don't seem to care much about him, save as a butt to laugh at; and although I have occasionally seen the languid and listless dandy feebly struggling between billows of crinoline, and carrying a gorgeous church-service to and from Belgravian places of worship on Sundays, it is not with great frequency, I opine, that his Common Prayer is opened at the Order for the Solemnisation of Matrimony. I fancy that when the dandy does marry, it is to one of those strong-minded British females who are in the habit of trotting their tall, gaunt, melancholy-looking, uncomplaining husbands from one Continental watering-place to another. You know the unhappy being I mean. He is a patient and uxorious drudge, an amiable and contented pack-horse. He is always in trouble about the luggage. He is the “Monsieur" with whom hotel-keepers are threatened when the bills are exorbitant, and who would pay the bills out of his own private funds for peace and quietness' sake if he had any private funds; but he hasn't. He gave up all those, years ago, for splendid board and lodging. He takes his wife's children-she has generally been a widow-out a-walking very meekly. He fetches their physic from the pharmacien Anglais,"Trois graines de pilule bleue, et une dose noire, s'il vous plait ;" and he is as harmless and, perhaps, slightly more useful than of yore. Add to the people I have endeavoured to sketch the foreigners who always muster in great force in the Grand Stand and its precincts, and think they are up to their eyes in Le Sport when they are elbowed and pushed about by the contending crowd. Almost every foreign legation in London has its minister or secretary or attaché here, generally got up in the most approved racing style, with white hats and green veils, and diaphonous coats, and white-jean boots with varnished tips and spurs,— whether they ride or not,—and white trousers. How is it that we, of all people in the world, should have almost entirely abandoned the use of those candid nether garments? Foreigners adhere to them with pleasing persistence; but, save on board a man-o'-war, who ever sees an Englishman with a pair of white ducks on nowadays? Easter Sunday used to be the great day for inaugurating their wear; but, of late years, we have had a succession of rainy Easters. That may have something to do with it. Or is it because the great Duke of Wellington, who wore white ducks winter and summer, is no more, and that the fashion has gone out with him? There are the diplomatic foreigners, who have seen races in every town in Europe almost; and there are the simple sight-seeing foreigners, who are lost in their amazement at the Babel sight and the Babel sounds; there are the country gentlemen of the neighbourhood, who really enjoy the race, and take a genuine interest in the "improvement of the racer." There would be a good many more members of the swell-mob on the look-out for gold watches, dropped pencil-cases, bank-notes, and similar trifles, than are actually present, but that each member of the pocketpicking fraternity is perfectly aware of the Argus-eyed attributes of Inspector Millament, Sergeant South, and sundry other officers of the police-force then and there present in plain clothes; and so the thieves prudently make themselves scarce at the earliest convenient opportunity. There are the reporters of the sporting newspapers, flitting in and out, rushing from pillar to post, and from post to paddock, and from paddock to Ring, back again,—seeing every thing: the weighing, saddling, starting, racing, winning, losing, buying, selling, judging, and betting,—passing to and fro unquestioned, quite as well recognised by the officials as the police, and by some almost as much feared, working like galley-slaves in pursuit of their vocation, and delighting in it, moreover. The great owners of race-horses, the solid, serious turfites, the substantial grave-eyed trainers, are seldom seen, and then but for an instant. They have other and weightier business further afield, where the grass is greener, and the throng is not so dense. Ai! Ai!-which is an ejaculation I hope will be pardoned to me by the critics,—the hullaballoo, the hue and cry, the frenzied exclamation of the book-makers. They will bet against every thing: who will lay against the field? who will back any thing? They will do every thing. Bar one; bar two; bar three. What will any body do on the event? His Lordship wins; the Captain wins in a canter. Didn't they say so? Green wins; Black wins; Red wins. The very Fiend himself would seem to be winning to listen to the unearthly screeching of these men. Such hot, dusty, streaming, common, knavish, or brutal faces, too! Now the wolf-type, hungry and savage; now the fox-type, cunning and cynical, and, the day being warm, of not too sweet a savour; now the terrier-type, honest enough, but exceeding ravenous after rats. Men -old betting-men-with faces like owls, like magpies, like ravens; not many of the eagle-type, I fancy, save in so far as aquiline noses reach. Of these, with the accompaniment of greasy ringlets, pulpy lips, and much glittering jewelry, there is sufficiency, and a little to spare, it may be. And there are weasel faces, ferret faces, grinning-otter faces, hawk faces, bull-dog faces, and bull faces; but on every human face, among the book-making crew, there is always and ever the unmistakable stamp and brand of the Gambler,-the nervous tick of the head from side to side, the teeth busy with the lips, the fingers busy with the chin, the unrest in the eye. In a lesser degree, you may see these signs among bargainers in corn and coal marts, among chafferers upon exchanges, among punters at rouge-et-noir tables, among bidders at auctions; but for the gambler's look,-l'allure de celui qui joue gros jeu,-commend me to the bookmakers in the Ring. They are of every variety of build and stature, and of all ages; but they have all gotten their symbol, and have taken Mammon's arles, and are soldiers in his great black-and-yellow regiment. Whence came they? From Manchester, Preston, Blackpool, Rochdale, Stockport, Blackburn,—from the great black, striving, working, gaming, spinning, heaving, savage north of England:-many of them, I think, from the dialect in which they yell. The harder, but not harsher, Yorkshire makes itself heard, too, with a vengeance. The unadulterated cockney, showering its "h's" about as from a pepper-caster, is not behindhand; every province in England seems to have sent a contingent. It is Babel; but Babel with a universal tongue concurrent with the confusion thereof, for every one of these money-mongers understands the one primeval language taught by Professor Mam mon. What were they ere they took to "making books"? Did they write them, or keep them, or sell them? This is a mystery which I, for one, do not pretend to solve; but I have heard that a man is fit to go into the Ring after he has been a beershop-keeper, a miner in a coal-pit, a railway-porter, a journeyman carpenter, the setter-up in a skittle-alley, the steward of a steamer, a helper in a stable, a prize-fighter, an omnibusdriver, and a gentleman's servant. I have heard that some of these men, the coarsest, commonest of their kind, unable to read or write, scarcely able to speak their native tongue, have yet been gifted with powers, or have acquired habits, of mental calculation which would, if tested, somewhat astonish Mr. Bidder, ex-calculating boy, and Mr. Babbage, present constructor of figure-grinding machines, and hater of music-grinding ditto. I have heard that the word of many of these men may be taken for tens of thousands of pounds, and that, amidst an amount of trickery and roguery-not always among these coarse and common fellows from Lancashire or Whitechapel-which has brought scandal and discredit on the English turf, there are some who are strictly honest and scrupulously honourable therein setting an example to many refined and many aristocratic frequenters of Tattersall's. "They're a queer lot, and that's a fact," Inspector Millament remarked to Sergeant South. "How they do get along without breaking oftener than they do is a wonder to me." "They do break sometimes, though," the Sergeant said. "There's too many of 'em, Inspector. My belief is, in horse-racing, that there's more cats than mice for 'em to catch." "And when they do break,-when they cannot pay ?" asked Simon Lefranc. "Why, then they have to go over yonder," explained the Sergeant, pointing to an outer Babel beyond the barrier of the Stand, and where multitudes of betting-men, shabbier in attire, but with the same types of face,-oh, the very same types of face,-were exchanging yells of intelli gence, and receiving yells back again, and occasionally leaping high in air to catch the eyes of those within the Ring. "They have to go over yonder," said the Sergeant, "and make their bets as they can. It's about our time. Suppose we go out and look at 'em; and then, if you're agreeable, Inspector and Monsieur, we'll have a little lunch. One of my men has just given me the office, and four o'clock will do very well for our little business. Unless your little party ties herself to the wing of a carrier-pigeon, or telegraphs herself to London, she can't very well get away from the eyes that are watching her. This way, Monsieur." And so the three went out among the outsiders; each man with the fate of a human being-it may be-in his breast-pocket. CHAPTER XXVII. CAUGHT. "My horse! my horse!" had cried little Mrs. Armytage from her brougham window as "Teddy the Tyler" won by a neck. Yes; he was her horse-her favourite-the colt she would win so much money by. She could have kissed the jockey, so delighted was she. Miserable little woman! she did not see Black Care mounted behind that skilful rider as he was paraded along the course amidst the shouting crowds! It was too late to fly. She was encompassed. The swarthy gipsywoman who came to beg her to cross her hand with silver, and, as she laughingly held out her palm, mumbled to her about a fair young man who had gone a long journey, but who would see her again shortly, had her eye upon her. The post-boy who was regaling on the dinner drawn from her own hamper, who was devouring her own viands, and fuddling himself with her own wines, had been bribed to watch her, and did watch her, mingled liquids notwithstanding. There was an Ethiopian serenader with a straw hat and a monstrous shirt-collar, and who came and serenaded her with a broken banjo, who was appointed to spy over her. Her horses were in safe keeping, and would be harnessed only by superior order. For Florence Armytage was wanted very badly indeed, and no expense was spared for the accomplishment of the purpose certain parties held in view. And who do you think was to have been Mrs. Armytage's cavalier on this occasion? The cavalier had not come yet. Il se faisait attendre. He was coming. Ah, Florence, he was coming; and he was to take her home. There was a prodigious gathering of carriages on the Hill. Threading the maze at Hampton Court was a light and easy task compared with the labour of following the ins and outs of the close-clustered carriages. There they were, axle to axle, and pole to panel, in any thing but comfortable proximity: so the gentlemen thought who had to perform |