flooding of quiet country places by the city's hordes. 'You're right,
right,' said Fleetwood, in sympathy, resigned to the prospect of
despising his associates without a handy helper. He named Esslemont
once, shot up a look at the sky, and glanced it Eastward.

Three coaches were bound for Sunbury from a common starting-point at nine
of the morning. Lord Fleetwood, Lord Brailstone, and Lord Simon Pitscrew
were the whips. Two hours in advance of them, the earl's famous
purveyors of picnic feasts bowled along to pitch the riverside tent and
spread the tables. Our upper and lower London world reported the earl as
out on another of his expeditions: and, say what we will, we must think
kindly of a wealthy nobleman ever to the front to enliven the town's
dusty eyes and increase Old England's reputation for pre-eminence in the
Sports.

He is the husband of the Whitechapel Countess--got himself into
that mess; but whatever he does, he puts the stamp of style on it.
He and the thing he sets his hand to, they're neat, they're finished,
they're fitted to trot together, and they've a shining polish, natural,
like a lily of the fields; or say Nature and Art, like the coat of a
thoroughbred led into the paddock by his groom, if you're of that mind.

Present at the start in Piccadilly, Gower took note of Lord Fleetwood's
military promptitude to do the work he had no taste for, and envied the
self-compression which could assume so pleasant an air. He heard here
and there crisp comments on his lordship's coach and horses and personal
smartness; the word 'style,' which reflects handsomely on the connoisseur
conferring it, and the question whether one of the ladies up there was
the countess. His task of unearthing and disentangling the monetary
affairs of 'one of the ladies' compelled the wish to belong to the party