him well, and keep him at it, and
no fear but he'll carry her through. He'll fetch her home safe at last,
and no mistake, depend on it, Squire. The best lesson that little boy
could be taught, is, that of _the Patron, or the Cows Tail_."

CHAPTER III. ASCOT RACES.

To-day I visited Ascot. Race-courses are similar every where, and
present the same objects; good horses, cruel riders, knowing men, dupes,
jockeys, gamblers, and a large assemblage of mixed company. But this
is a gayer scene than most others; and every epithet, appropriate to a
course, diminutive or otherwise, must be in the superlative degree when
applied to Ascot. This is the general, and often the only impression
that most men carry away with them.

Mr. Slick, who regards these things practically, called my attention to
another view of it.

"Squire," said he, "I'd a plaguy sight sooner see Ascot than any thing
else to England. There ain't nothin' like it. I don't mean the racin',
because they can't go ahead like us, if they was to die for it. We have
colts that can whip chain lightnin', on a pinch. Old Clay trotted with
it once all round an orchard, and beat it his whole length, but it
singed his tail properly as he passed it, you may depend. It ain't its
runnin' I speak of, therefore, though that ain't mean nother; but it's
got another featur', that you'll know it by from all others. Oh it's an
everlastin' pity you warn't here, when I was to England last time. Queen
was there then; and where she is, of coarse all the world and its wife
is too. She warn't there this year, and it sarves folks right. If I was
an angelyferous queen, like her, I wouldn't go nowhere till I had a
tory minister, and then a feller that had a "trigger-eye" would stand
a chance to get a white hemp-neckcloth. I don't wonder Hume don't like
young England; for when that boy grows up, he'll teach some folks that
they had better let some folks alone, or some folks had better take care
of some folks' ampersands that's all.

"The time I speak of, people went in their carriages, and not by
railroad. Now, pr'aps you don't know, in fact you can't know, for you
can't cypher, colonists ain't no good at figurs, but if you did know,
the way to judge of a nation is by its private carriages. From Hyde Park
corner to Ascot Heath, is twenty odd miles. Well, there was one whole
endurin' stream of carriages all the way, sometimes havin' one or two
eddies, and where the toll-gates stood, hav