Chapter 5 - Page 2

and moodily of
horses and John Scott. The young clergyman in the black strait-
waistcoat, who occupied the middle seat of the carriage, expounded
in his peculiar pulpit-accent to the young and lovely Reverend Mrs.
Crinoline, who occupied the opposite middle-seat, a few passages of
rumour relative to 'Oartheth, my love, and Mithter John Eth-COTT.'
A bandy vagabond, with a head like a Dutch cheese, in a fustian
stable-suit, attending on a horse-box and going about the platforms
with a halter hanging round his neck like a Calais burgher of the
ancient period much degenerated, was courted by the best society,
by reason of what he had to hint, when not engaged in eating straw,
concerning 't'harses and Joon Scott.' The engine-driver himself,
as he applied one eye to his large stationary double-eye-glass on
the engine, seemed to keep the other open, sideways, upon horses
and John Scott.

Breaks and barriers at Doncaster Station to keep the crowd off;
temporary wooden avenues of ingress and egress, to help the crowd
on. Forty extra porters sent down for this present blessed Race-
Week, and all of them making up their betting-books in the lamp-
room or somewhere else, and none of them to come and touch the
luggage. Travellers disgorged into an open space, a howling
wilderness of idle men. All work but race-work at a stand-still;
all men at a stand-still. 'Ey my word! Deant ask noon o' us to
help wi' t'luggage. Bock your opinion loike a mon. Coom! Dang
it, coom, t'harses and Joon Scott!' In the midst of the idle men,
all the fly horses and omnibus horses of Doncaster and parts
adjacent, rampant, rearing, backing, plunging, shying--apparently
the result of their hearing of nothing but their own order and John
Scott.

Grand Dramatic Company from London for the Race-Week. Poses
Plastiques in the Grand Assembly Room up the Stable-Yard at seven
and nine each evening, for the Race-Week. Grand Alliance Circus in
the field beyond the bridge, for the Race-Week. Grand Exhibition
of Aztec Lilliputians, important to all who want to be horrified
cheap, for the Race-Week. Lodgings, grand and not grand, but all
at grand prices, ranging from ten pounds to twenty, for the Grand
Race-Week!

Rendered giddy enough by these things, Messieurs Idle and Goodchild
repaired to the quarters they had secured beforehand, and Mr.
Goodchild looked down from the window into the surging street.

'By Heaven, Tom!' cried he, after contemplating it, 'I am in the
Lunatic Asylum again, and these are all mad people under the charge
of a body of designing keepers!'

All through the Race-Week, Mr. Goodchild never divested himself of
this idea. Every day he looked out of window, with something of
the dread of