against Li-bellous!" "I'll bet against the Merry
Maid!" "I'll bet against any one, bar one!"
Nobody seemed to take their bets, nobody took
the slightest notice of their offers, and yet they
bellowed away until the race was run, in every
variety of accent—in Cockney slang, in
Yorkshire harshness, in Irish brogue. These were the
only members of the crowd, thoroughly intent
on their business; for all the rest Youthful
Royalty had an immense attraction.

Sliding and slithering about on the sloping
ground where turf had been and where now
mud was, they pushed, and hustled, and jumped
up to look over each other's heads. "Vich is
'im? Vich is 'im?" "Not 'im! That's the
late Duke o' Vellinton! There's the Prince a
blowin' his bacca like a man!" "Ain't he dry,
neither?" "Ain't I? Vonder vether he'd stand
a drain?" "He wouldn't look so chuff if he
vos down here, vith this moisture a tricklin' on
his 'ed?" "Who's the hold bloke in barnacles?"
"That—that's Queen Hann!" No wet, no
poverty, no misery, could stop the crowd's
chaff; and amidst it all still rang out the
monotonous cry of the "Welshers"—"I'll bet
against Li-bellous?" "I'll bet against the
field!"

A dull thudding on the turf, a roar from the
neighbouring stand, and the simultaneous
disappearance of all the "Welshers," tells us—for
we can see nothing—that the first race is over,
and that we can move towards the hill. Motion
is slow; for, the crowd surging on to the
course is met by a crowd seething off it, and
when I do fight to the front, I have to dip
under a low rail, and come out on the other
side, like a diver. The course was comparatively
dry, and just as we emerged upon it a
large black overhanging cloud lifted like a
veil, and left a bright, unnatural, but not
unpromising, sky. O'Hone brightened
simultaneously, and declared that all our troubles were
over; we gained the hill, worked our way
through the lines of carriages, received a
dozen invitations to lunch, took a glass or two of
sherry as a preliminary instalment, and settled
down for the Derby. The old preparations
annually recurring—the bell to clear the course,
the lagging people, the demonstrative police, the
dog (four different specimens this year at different
intervals, each with more steadfastness of
purpose to run the entire length of the course
than I have ever seen previously exhibited), the
man who, wanting to cross, trots half way, is
seized and brought back in degradation; the
man who says or does something obnoxious
(nobody ever knows what) to his immediate
neighbours just before the race, and is thereupon
bonneted, and kicked, and cuffed into outer
darkness; the yelling Ring; the company on the
Hill, purely amateurish, with no pecuniary
interest beyond shares in a five shilling sweepstakes,
and divided between excitement about the race
and a desire for lunch; the entrance of the horses
from the paddock, the preliminary canter—all
the old things, with one new feature—new to
me at least—THE RAIN! No mistake about it;
down, down it came in straight steady pour;
no blinking it, no "merely a shower," no hint
at "laying the dust;" it asserted its power at
once, it defied you to laugh at it, it defied you
to fight against it, it meant hopeless misery,
and it carried out its meaning. Up with the
hoods of open carriages, out with the rugs, up
with the aprons, unfurl umbrellas on the top of
the drags; shiver and crouch Monseiur Le
Sport, arrived viâ Folkestone last night—poor
Monsieur Le Sport, in the thin paletot and the
curly-brimmed hat down which the wet trickles,
and the little jean boots with the shiny tips and
the brown-paper soles, already pappy and sodden;
cower under your canvas wall, against which no
sticks at three a penny will rattle to-day—O,
gipsy tramp, run to the nearest drinking-
booth—O, band of niggers, piebald with the
wet! For one mortal hour do we stand on the
soaked turf in the pouring rain, with that horrid
occasional shiver which always accompanies wet
feet, waiting for a start to be effected. Every
ten minutes, rises a subdued murmur of hope,
followed by a growl of disappointment. At last
they are really "off," and for two minutes we
forget our misery. But it comes upon us with
redoubled force when the race is over, and there
is nothing more to look forward to.

Lunch? Nonsense! Something to keep off
starvation, if you like—a bit of bread and a
chicken's wing—but no attempt at sociality.
One can't be humorous inside a close carriage
with the windows up and the rain battering on
the roof! Last year it was iced champagne,
claret-cup, and silk overcoats; now, it ought to
be hot brandy-and-water, foot-baths, and flannels.
Home! Home, across the wheat-field, now
simple squash, down the hill, now liquid filth;
through the town, now steaming like a laundress's
in full work; home by the train with other
silent sodden miserable wretches; home in a cab,
past waiting crowds of jeering cynics, who point
the finger and take the sight, and remark, "Ain't
they got it, neither!" and "Water-rats this lot!"
—home to hot slippers, dry clothes, a roaring
fire, and creature-comforts, and a stern
determination never again to "do" a dirty Derby.

PERSIAN MANNERS.

THE manner of conducting business generally
among the Persians is childish and dilatory. No
man sets the smallest value on his own words,
or on those of anybody else. They look upon
words as playthings. Their conversation with
equals and superiors is usually dictated by a
desire to please, and they will utter anything
which they consider most likely to attain this
object, entirely regardless of fact. If convicted
of a direct lie, they say with a shrug, "I have
eaten dirt," which merely means "I have been
found out," and there's an end of it.

In every transaction of life, the same
insincerity is observable. A tradesman will coolly
ask twenty times as much for his wares as he
would be really glad to take, and this does not