nd it's a
hollow thing; if you don't fall, you must win,"--and thereupon taking
Mr. Jorrocks's cocked hat and feather from his head, he put it sideways
on his own, so that he might not be recognised, and mounted his man. Mr.
Jorrocks then took his place as directed by John Jones, and at a signal
from him--the dropping of a blue cotton handkerchief--away they started
amid the shouts, the clapping of hands, and applause of the spectators,
who covered the mound and lined the course on either side. Mr.
Jorrocks's action was not very capital, his jack-boots and leathers
rather impeding his limbs, while the Baron had as little on him as
decency would allow. The Yorkshireman feeling his man rather roll at the
start, again cautioned him to take it easy, and after a dozen yards he
got into a capital run, and though the lanky Baron came tearing along
like an ill-fed greyhound, Mr. Jorrocks had full two yards to spare,
and ran past the soldier, who stood with his cap on his bayonet as
a winning-post, amid the applause of his backers, the yells of his
opponents, and the general acclamation of the spectators.

The Countess, anticipating the victory of her hero, had dispatched
Agamemnon early in the day for a chaplet of red-and-yellow immortelles,
and having switched the old cab horse up to the winning-post, she
gracefully descended, without showing more of her foot and ankle than
was strictly correct, and decorated his brow with the wreath, as the
Yorkshireman dismounted. Enthusiasm being always the order of the day in
France, this act was greeted with the loudest acclamations, and, without
giving him time to recover his wind, the populace bundled Mr. Jorrocks
neck and shoulders into the cab, and seizing the old horse by the head,
paraded him down the entire length of the Champ de Mars, Mr. Jorrocks
bowing and kissing his hands to the assembled multitude, in return
for the vivas! the clapping of hands, and the waving of ribbons and
handkerchiefs that greeted him as he went.

Popularity is but a fickle goddess, and in no country more fickle than
in France. Ere the procession reached the end of the dusty plain, the
mob had tailed off very considerably, and as the leader of the old white
horse pulled him round to return, a fresh commotion in the distance,
caused by the apprehension of a couple of pickpockets, drew away the few
followers that remained, and the recently applauded and belauded Mr.
Jorrocks was left alone in his glory. He