Catullus, Theodoras Duca, Boleslaus, Edward
the Third of England, and Rembrandt. These,
however, are the fancies of a single mind, and
cannot claim the serious investigation due to
impressions, however vague, which are common
to a considerable proportion of the human race.

THE DIRTY DERBY.

WHEN I think that this is written with
unshackled hands in a pleasant library instead of
a padded cell, that I am as much in possession of
my senses as I ever was, and that I acted under no
constraint or obligation—I feel that the world will
be naturally incredulous when I record the fact
that I went to the last Derby. I blush as I
make the statement; but if I had not gone, what
could I have done with O'Hone, who had come
over from Ballyblether expressly for the event,
who had been my very pleasant guest for the
three previous days, and who would have been
grievously disappointed had he not put in an
appearance on the Downs? For O'Hone is
decidedly horsey. From the crown of his bell-
shaped hat to the sole of his natty boots, taking
in his cutaway coat, his long waistcoat, and his
tight trousers, there is about him that singular
flavour, compounded of stables, starting-bells,
posts and rails, trodden grass, metallic
memorandum-books, and lobster-salad, which always
clings to those gentry whom the press organs are
pleased to describe as "patrons of the turf."
Since O'Hone has been with me, the stout cob
whose services I retain for sanitary purposes,
and who is wont to jolt me up the breezy
heights of Hampstead or through the green
lanes of Willesden, has been devoted to my
friend, has undergone an entirely new phase of
existence, has learnt to curvet and dance, and
has passed a considerable portion of each day in
airing himself and his rider in the fashionable
Row. For I find it characteristic of all my
visitors from the country that while they are in
town not merely should they see, but also that
they should be seen; there is generally some
friend from their country town staying in
London at the same time, to whom they like to
exhibit themselves to the best advantage, and
there is always the local member of parliament,
who is called upon and catechised, and
whose life, from what I can make out, must be
a weary one indeed.

For O'Hone to miss seeing the race would have
been wretched, though even then he would not
have been worse off than an American gentleman
who crossed the Atlantic expressly to attend the
Epsom festival, and who, being seized with the
pangs of hunger at about half-past two on the
Derby Day, entered Mr. Careless's booth and
began amusing himself with some edible
"fixings" in the way of lunch, in which pleasant
task he was still engaged when shouts rent the
air, and the American gentleman rushing
hat-less out of the booth, and finding that the race
had been run and was over, burst into the
piercing lamentation: "Oh, Jé—rusalem! To
come three thousand miles to eat cold lamb and
salad!" But for O'Hone to miss being seen at
the race, being recognised by the member, by Tom
Durfy now sporting reporter on the press, but
erst educated at the Ballyblether Free School, and
by the two or three townsmen who were safe to
be on the Downs, that would be misery indeed.
Moreover, I was dimly conscious of a white hat,
and a singular alpaca garment (which gave one
the idea that the wearer's tailor had sent home
the lining instead of the coat), which I knew
had been specially reserved by my friend for the
Derby Day; so I determined that, so far as I
was concerned, no overt objection to our going
to Epsom should be made.

I still, however, retained a latent hope that
the sense of impending misery, only too obvious
from the aspect of the sky during the two
previous days, would have had its natural effect in
toning down my impulsive guest; but when I
went into his bedroom on the morning of the
fatal day, and when I pulled up the blind and
made him conscious of the rain pattering against
his window, he merely remarked, that "a light
animal was no good to-day, anyhow," and I,
with a dim internal consciousness that I, albeit
a heavy animal, was equally of no good under
the circumstances, withdrew in confusion. At
breakfast, O'Hone was still appallingly cheerful,
referred in a hilarious manner to the "laying of
the dust," borrowed my waterproof coat with a
gentlemanly assumption which I have only seen
rivalled by the light comedian in a rattling farce,
and beguiled me into starting, during a temporary
cessation of the downfal, after he had made a
severe scrutiny of the sky, and had delivered
himself of various meteorological observations, in
which, when they come from persons residing in
the country, I have a wild habit of implicitly
believing.

We had promised, the night before, to call for
little Iklass, an artist, and one of the pleasantest
companions possible when all went well, but
who, if it rained, or the cork had come out of
the salad dressing, or the salt had been forgotten
at a pic-nic, emerged as Apollyon incarnate.
Little Iklass's greatest characteristic being his
generous devotion to himself, I knew that the
aspect of the morning would prevent him from
running the chance of allowing any damp to
descend on that sacred form. We found him
smoking a pipe, working at his easel, and
chuckling at the discomfiture outside. "No, no,
boys," said he, "not I! I'll be hanged—— "

"Which you weren't this year at the
Academy!" I interrupted, viciously; but you
can't upset Iklass with your finest sarcasm!

"The same to you, and several of them—no—
which I was not—but I will be, if I go to-day!
It'll be awfully miserable, and there are three of
us, and I dare say you won't always let me sit in
the middle, with you to keep the wind off on
either side. And I won't go!" And he wouldn't,
so we left him, and saw him grinning out of his
window, and pointing with his mahl-stick at the
skies, whence the rain began to descend again,
as we got into the cab.