As we rode along to the betting-post, Sir John Tyrrell passed us: Lord
Chester accosted him familiarly, and the baronet joined us. He had been
an old votary of the turf in his younger days, and he still preserved all
his ancient predilection in its favour.

It seemed that Chester had not met him for many years, and after a short
and characteristic conversation of "God bless me, how long since I saw
you!--d--d good horse you're on--you look thin--admirable condition--what
have you been doing?--grand action--a'n't we behind hand?--famous fore-
hand--recollect old Queensberry?--hot in the mouth--gone to the devil--
what are the odds?" Lord Chester asked Tyrrell to go home with us. The
invitation was readily accepted.

"With impotence of will
We wheel, tho' ghastly shadows interpose
Round us, and round each other."--Shelley.

Now, then, arose the noise, the clatter, the swearing, the lying, the
perjury, the cheating, the crowd, the bustle, the hurry, the rush, the
heat, the ardour, the impatience, the hope, the terror, the rapture, the
agony of the race. Directly the first heat was over, one asked me one
thing, one bellowed another; I fled to Lord Chester, he did not heed me.
I took refuge with the marchioness; she was as sullen as an east wind
could make her. Lady Harriett would talk of nothing but the horses: Sir
Lionel would not talk at all. I was in the lowest pit of despondency, and
the devils that kept me there were as blue as Lady Chester's nose.
Silent, sad, sorrowful, and sulky, I rode away from the crowd, and
moralized on its vicious propensities. One grows marvellously honest when
the species of cheating before us is not suited to one's self.