ASCOT AND NEWBURY 293 



the Chafe Preventer, another proprietary article, 

 the Catch-cold Obviator, and the Lissomness 

 Assurer will be at pupils' service, and so will a 

 whole library of route books, teeming with infor- 

 mation in bright, newsy form and heavy with 

 advertisements. Altogether we shall, if* we 

 strike while the iron is hot, pretty well make our 

 fortunes — one of us will, your humble servant. 

 For the populace has been so freely informed of 

 late that it can walk if it likes — the information 

 coming for the most part from people who 

 manifestly never could walk themselves — that a 

 fine market was open. 



Speaking seriously, there is the making of a 

 pleasantly earned income out of taking up the 

 walking guide business professionally. I wonder 

 how many answers I should have received to an 

 advertisement offering to personally conduct 

 eligible parties from, say, Datchet to Ascot and 

 back during the race week. Of course, you must 

 chance the weather, and might have bad luck ; 

 but, given good, "what larx," and what a time 

 the talker can have letting off his local lore ! 

 Once I had the pleasure and honour of taking 

 our Editor over some of the ground — bossing a 

 class of one. We didn't go the shortest way, 

 but did ourselves well, beginning at Datchet 

 churchyard's smith's tomb, showing in miniature 

 all the implements of the farrier's trade. The 

 church lasted us a long way, because of a 

 beautiful gipsy funeral I saw there once, and the 

 strange doings of the tribe, which, as my class 

 had not heard, I related to him, including the 

 affecting anecdote of West Drayton's burned 

 Grand Stand and the coup manque. We had, 

 I recollect, to hold over for a mile or two the 



