less eagerly, for the
carriages they had left in quest of better stations. Here, a little knot
gathered round a pea and thimble table to watch the plucking of some
unhappy greenhorn; and there, another proprietor with his confederates
in various disguises--one man in spectacles; another, with an eyeglass
and a stylish hat; a third, dressed as a farmer well to do in the world,
with his top-coat over his arm and his flash notes in a large leathern
pocket-book; and all with heavy-handled whips to represent most innocent
country fellows who had trotted there on horseback--sought, by loud and
noisy talk and pretended play, to entrap some unwary customer, while the
gentlemen confederates (of more villainous aspect still, in clean linen
and good clothes), betrayed their close interest in the concern by
the anxious furtive glance they cast on all new comers. These would be
hanging on the outskirts of a wide circle of people assembled round some
itinerant juggler, opposed, in his turn, by a noisy band of music,
or the classic game of 'Ring the Bull,' while ventriloquists holding
dialogues with wooden dolls, and fortune-telling women smothering the
cries of real babies, divided with them, and many more, the general
attention of the company. Drinking-tents were full, glasses began to
clink in carriages, hampers to be unpacked, tempting provisions to be
set forth, knives and forks to rattle, champagne corks to fly, eyes to
brighten that were not dull before, and pickpockets to count their gains
during the last heat. The attention so recently strained on one object
of interest, was now divided among a hundred; and look where you would,
there was a motley assemblage of feasting, laughing, talking, begging,
gambling, and mummery.

Of the gambling-booths there was a plentiful show, flourishing in all
the splendour of carpeted ground, striped hangings, crimson cloth,
pinnacled roofs, geranium pots, and livery servants. There were the
Stranger's club-house, the Athenaeum club-house, the Hampton club-house,
the St James's club-house, and half a mile of club-houses to play IN;
and there were ROUGE-ET-NOIR, French hazard, and other games to play AT.
It is into one of these booths that our story takes its way.

Fitted up with three tables for the purposes of play, and crowded with
players and lookers on, it was, although the largest place of the kind
upon the course, intensely hot, notwithstanding that a portion of the
canvas roof was roll