ishment at the insignificance of the place. But wiser men than
Mr. Jorrocks have been similarly disappointed, for it enters into
the philosophy of few to conceive the fame and grandeur of Newmarket
compressed into the limits of the petty, outlandish, Icelandish place
that bears the name. "Dash my vig," said Mr. Jorrocks, as he brought
himself to bear upon Rogers's shop-window, "this is the werry
meanest town I ever did see. Pray, sir," addressing himself to a
groomish-looking man in a brown cut-away coat, drab shorts and
continuations, who had just emerged from the shop with a race list in
his hand, "Pray, sir, be this your principal street?" The man eyed him
with a mixed look of incredulity and contempt. At length, putting his
thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, he replied, "I bet a crown
you know as well as I do." "Done," said Mr. Jorrocks holding out his
hand. "No--I won't do that," replied the man, "but I'll tell you what
I'll do with you,--I'll lay you two to one, in fives or fifties if you
like, that you knew before you axed, and that Thunderbolt don't win the
Riddlesworth." "Really," said Mr. Jorrocks, "I'm not a betting man."
"Then, wot the 'ell business have you at Newmarket?" was all the answer
he got. Disgusted with such inhospitable impertinence, Mr. Jorrocks
turned on his heel and walked away. Before the "White Hart" Inn was a
smartish pony phaeton, in charge of a stunted stable lad. "I say, young
chap," inquired Jorrocks, "whose is that?" "How did you know that I
was a young chap?" inquired the abortion turning round. "Guessed it,"
replied Jorrocks, chuckling at his own wit. "Then guess whose it is."

"Pray, are your clocks here by London time?" he asked of a respectable
elderly-looking man whom he saw turn out of the entry leading to the
Kingston rooms, and take the usual survey first up the town and then
down it, and afterwards compose his hands in his breeches-pockets, there
to stand to see the "world." [17] "Come now, old 'un--none o' your tricks
here--you've got a match on against time, I suppose," was all the answer
he could get after the man (old R--n the ex-flagellator) had surveyed
him from head to foot.

[Footnote 17: Newmarket or London--it's all the same--"The world" is but
composed of one's own acquaintance.]

We need hardly say after all these rebuffs that when Mr. Jorrocks met
the Yorkshireman, he was not in the best possible humour; indeed, to say
nothing of the extreme sharpness