208 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



Course, on which are run races that, considering 

 the awful weight carried and the distance, four 

 miles or so, are a disgrace to racing civilisation. 

 On the Round Course, now a dreadfully dilapi- 

 dated track, I voyaged. I interviewed the good 

 lady at the turnpike-house by the corner of the 

 Ditch, and the other lady who also sometimes 

 refreshes me with ginger beer, the semi-official 

 tenant in charge at the corner of the road which, 

 at a mile from Newmarket, branches one way to 

 Thetford and the other to Bury St Edmunds. I 

 met, jogging along, the higglers and hucksters 

 who make marketing so cheap in Newmarket 

 town while the shopkeepers hold up prices so dear, 

 and I said ''How do?" to the noble local army 

 of unauthorised tipsters, who can and will tell you 

 all the winners, and are sure to be right, because 

 they are always hard up and stony-broke them- 

 selves. I did the lot mentioned and a good deal 

 more ; and when you have done the same you will 

 feel you have had a run for your money, or I am 

 mistaken. 



Mr George Verrall put me up to the habitat of 

 a certain very, very rare English flower. Describe 

 it, not me, I would as soon put in print the 

 whereabouts of a scarce bird seldom seen on 

 our shores, and get the poor thing murdered. 

 Once upon a time, a philanthropical botanising 

 old party of my acquaintance was ''put on to" 

 a choice fern which he wanted. How do you 

 think he showed gratitude for the tip.-^ How? 

 He improved the occasion by lecturing to a com- 

 pany of able-bodied loafers, hangers-on of those 

 parts, and informed them of the thing's merits 

 and beauties, chucking in plenty of long book 

 words. And how do you think the don't-want- 



