They were the electrical wires of the time for an expectant population
bursting to have report of so thundering an event as the encounter of two
champion light weights, nursed and backed by a pair of gallant young
noblemen, pick of the whole row of coronets above. London panted gaping
and the gigs flew with the meat to fill it.

Chumley Potts offered Ambrose Mallard fair odds that the neat little trap
of the chief sporting journal, which had a reputation to maintain, would
be over one or other of the bridges crossing the Thames first. Mallard
had been struck by the neat little trap of an impudent new and lower-
priced journal, which had a reputation to gain. He took the proffered
odds, on the cry as of a cracker splitting. Enormous difficulties in
regard to the testimony and the verifications were discussed; they were
overcome. Potts was ready for any amount of trouble; Mallard the same.
There was clearly a race. There would consequently be a record. Visits
to the offices of those papers, perhaps half a day at the south end of
London or on Westminster bridge, examining witnesses, corner shopmen,
watermen, and the like, would or should satisfactorily establish the
disputed point.

Fleetwood had his fun; insomuch that he laughed himself into a sentiment
of humaneness toward the couple of donkeys and forgot his contempt of
them. Their gamblings and their bets increased his number of dependents;
and imbeciles were preferable to dolts or the dry gilt figures of the
circle he had to move in. Matter for some astonishment had been
furnished to the latter this day; and would cause an icy Signor stare
and rather an angry Signora flutter. A characteristic of that upper
circle, as he knew it, is, that the good are dull, the vicious very bad.
They had nothing to please him but manners. Elsewhere this land is a
land of no manners. Take it and make the most of it, then, for its