legs. Amaryllis had no
objection to their being tall--indeed, to be tall is often a passport to
a "Jewess' eye"--but they were so clumsy.

Of the scores who went by in traps and vehicles she could not see much
but their clothes and their faces, and both the clothes and the faces
were very much alike. Rough, good cloth, ill-fitting (the shoulders were
too broad for the tailor, who wanted to force Bond Street measurements
on the British farmer's back); reddish, speckled faces, and yellowish
hair and whiskers; big speckled hands, and that was all. Scores of men,
precisely similar, were driven down the road. If those broad speckled
hands had been shown to Jacob's ewes he need not have peeled rods to
make them bring forth speckled lambs.

Against the stile a long way up the road there was a group of five or
six men, who were there when she first peered over the wall, and made
no further progress to the Fair. They were waiting till some
acquaintance came by and offered a lift; lazy dogs, they could not walk.
They had already been there long enough to have walked to the Fair and
back, still they preferred to fold their hands and cross their legs, and
stay on. So many people being anxious to get to the town, most of those
who drove had picked up friends long before they got here.

The worst walker of all was a constable, whose huge boots seemed to take
possession of the width of the road, for he turned them out at right
angles, working his legs sideways to do it, an extraordinary exhibition
of stupidity and ugliness, for which the authorities who drilled him in
that way were responsible, and not the poor fellow.

Among the lowing cattle and the baaing sheep there drifted by a variety
of human animals, tramps and vagrants, not nearly of so much value as
the wool and beef.

It is curious that these "characters"--as they are so kindly
called--have a way of associating themselves with things that promise
vast enjoyment to others. The number of unhappy, shirtless wretches who
thread their path in and out the coaches at the Derby is wonderful.
While the champagne fizzes above on the roof, and the footman between
the shafts sits on an upturned hamper and helps himself out of another
to pie with truffles, the hungry, lean kine of human life wander round
about sniffing and smelling, like Adam and Eve after the fall at the
edge of Paradise.

There are such incredible swarms of vagrants at the Derby that you might
think the race wa