290 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



there during the rush and turmoil of its sporting 

 week, when, though great personages are 

 plentiful, so are the middling, and even less 

 distinguished, whom extreme nobility might 

 class as common, and the unmistakably unde- 

 sirable, who are a class with no class at all, 

 poor creatures. No ; to give the settlement a 

 fair chance of doing itself justice in your eyes, 

 you should occur In the quite off-season, when 

 racing Is out and hunting is in, and some 

 greatness has got up a bazaar or a concert at 

 the Grand Stand, or a dance Is on. 



Then, also on the arrival of the fast afternoon 

 after-business train, you get to understand what 

 Ascot's proper form Is according to its own 

 estimate. If smartness and neatness and the 

 pride said to ape humility — who shall wish to 

 go scatheless If this is a fair impeachment ? — 

 whose outward and visible sign is most precious, 

 evidenced as it is In everything being as good as 

 can be without evidence of fiashness — are indica- 

 tions of the aristocratic, then Ascot is O.K. If 

 keeping houses and grounds in apple-pie order, 

 driving and riding good horses, and, generally 

 speaking, going about as if you enjoyed life and 

 could afford to pay for the privilege, is In the 

 aristocratic line, again O.K. is the word for 

 Ascot — or are the letters. And the roads ! Old 

 as I am, obese as I am, broken down all round, 

 and standing over at the knees, with a touch in 

 the wind, and all the rest of the little afflictions 

 which do not permit of your passing the vet., 

 though they do allow of your doing a hard day's 

 work seven days a week ; crock that I am, I 

 declare that I scarcely ever get on Ascot's 

 highways in fine weather without wanting to 



