in' still water for ever so
far. Well, it flowed and flowed on for hours and hours without stoppin',
like a river; and when you got up to the race-ground, there was the
matter of two or three tiers of carriages, with the hosses off, packed
as close as pins in a paper.

"It costs near hand to twelve hundred dollars a-year to keep up a
carriage here. Now for goodness' sake jist multiply that everlastin'
string of carriages by three hundred pounds each, and see what's spent
in that way every year, and then multiply that by ten hundred thousand
more that's in other places to England you don't see, and then tell me
if rich people here ain't as thick as huckleberries."

"Well, when you've done, go to France, to Belgium, and to Prussia, three
sizeable places for Europe, and rake and scrape every private carriage
they've got, and they ain't no touch to what Ascot can show. Well, when
you've done your cypherin', come right back to London, as hard as you
can clip from the race-course, and you won't miss any of 'em; the town
is as full as ever, to your eyes. A knowin' old coon, bred and born to
London, might, but you couldn't.

"Arter that's over, go and pitch the whole bilin' of 'em into the
Thames, hosses, carriages, people, and all; and next day, if it warn't
for the black weepers and long faces of them that's lost money by it,
and the black crape and happy faces of them that's got money, or
titles, or what not by it, you wouldn't know nothin' about it. Carriages
wouldn't rise ten cents in the pound in the market. A stranger, like
you, if you warn't told, wouldn't know nothin' was the matter above
common. There ain't nothin' to England shows its wealth like this.

"Says father to me when I came back, 'Sam,' sais he, 'what struck you
most?'

"'Ascot Races,' sais I.

"'Jist like you,' sais he. 'Hosses and galls is all you think of.
Wherever they be, there you are, that's a fact. You're a chip of the old
block, my boy. There ain't nothin' lake 'em; is there?'

"Well, he was half right, was father. It's worth seein' for hosses and
galls too; but it's worth seein' for its carriage wealth alone. Heavens
and airth, what a rich country it must be that has such a show in that
line as England. Don't talk of stock, for it may fail; or silver-smiths'
shops, for you can't tell what's plated; or jewels, for they may be
paste; or goods, for they may be worth only half nothin'; but talk of
the carriages, them's the witnesses that don't