ASCOT AFFAIRS 219 



newspapers seem to think, either a magician or a Jehovah, 

 and he has ungrateful conditions to deal with, which I am 

 glad to have had the opportunity of stating. 



And now I come to a terrible responsibility of the Master 

 of the Buckhounds. I use the word responsibility advisedly, 

 for he is annually held accountable not merely for the 

 enjoyment and safe conduct of fashionable society, but also 

 for the satisfaction of its progressive desires.' Far be it from 

 me to lift the veil which shrouds the excellent mysteries of 

 the Royal Enclosure. Suffice it to say that the most well- 

 intentioned and upright Master of the Buckhounds must 

 be guilty of injustice. Clearly, unless he gave his life to 

 it, he cannot be expected to know everybody ; but setting 

 this aside, allowance must be made for the pressure of a 

 Frankenstein-like society, for the wear and tear of his nerves, 

 for the eccentricities of his digestion. Added to these comes 

 the strain of a seemingly four-fold multiplication of posts, 

 a locust horde of telegrams, devoted powdered footmen who 

 refuse to quit your premises, however uncomfortable, without 

 an answer, and all the other irritants of his everyday life 

 from say April 1 till about midday on the Wednesday in 

 Ascot week, when the well-directed dropping fire of appli- 

 cations begins to slacken. Nor is this the place to record 

 the elegant anguish of Worth- and Paquin-dressed disconso- 

 lates, the dignified remonstrances of their more influential 



' The following figures, which Major Clement has kindly sent me, may 

 amuse the curious and serve to indicate the present scale of the demands of 

 an Ascot week. 



On the Gold Cup day there were sent from the Ascot offices in 189(5, 12,753 

 telegrams and 4(3,000 words of Press matter ; and in 1897, 10,500 telegrams 

 and 45,000 words ; the diminution in the latter case was due to the fact that 

 betting on the lawn of the Grand Stand was this year prohibited. For the Grand 

 Stand luncheons alone, exclusive of the more solid viands, there were cooked 

 —1,800 fowls, 1,200 pigeons, 1,700 lbs. of salmon, 1,500 lobsters and 500 quails. 

 Of such figures as these Pantagruel himself would not have been ashamed. 



