142 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 



considerable sum, but less than half the amount it would 

 have realised had the insurance project been carried 

 out. The chagrin, disappointment, and just indig- 

 nation which the authorities of the various offices 

 felt, that they had thus been made to appear so 

 foolish, may be conceived. Although X. and myself 

 often met afterwards, he studiously avoided the 

 subject. I, however, discovered that, not satisfied 

 with the splendid coup he had made, that he had 

 made another gigantic purchase, and projected a 

 scheme which would absorb all the money he could 

 raise. This was to buy a fine estate, with splendid 

 mansion, with a noble deer park, farmery, extensive 

 stabling, lovely gardens, and every appanage to a 

 great county residence. This property was near 

 to Slough station, in Bucks, on the Great Western 

 Railway. X. had formed a club for high-class 

 people, ladies being included, with a racecourse, 

 polo, skating on the lake, and every possible allure- 

 ment for fashionable life. He appointed a well- 

 known sporting lord to preside over the proposed 

 Isthmian games, with a charming old Elizabethan 

 residence in the park, near the celebrated church- 

 yard of Stoke Poges, made famous by Gray's im- 

 mortal ode. A race meeting was arranged, the 

 day fixed, and all fashionable London was agog to 

 visit it. One important duty had, however, been 

 overlooked, that of ' police,' with the exception of 

 two or three ordinary county police, who were at- 

 tending at the mansion. Not a soul was in the 

 park for the protection of visitors. A party of 



