.

The scene is an Irish Point-to-Point meeting.

The course lies along a shallow valley, bounded on the north by a wall of
cloudy blue mountains.

At each jump stands a group of spectators; the difficulty or danger of an
obstacle may be measured by the number of spectators who stand about it,
recounting tales of past accidents and hoping cheerfully for the future.
Motor cars, side-cars, waggonettes, pony-traps and ass-carts are drawn up
anyhow round a clump of whitewashed farm buildings in the background.

Blanketed hunters are having their legs rubbed or being led up and down by
grooms. Comes a broken-winded tootle on a coach-horn and the black-and-
scarlet drag of the local garrison trundles into view. The unsophisticated
gun-horses in the lead shy violently at the flapping canvas of an
orange-stall and swerve to the left into a roulette-booth presided over by
a vociferous ancient in a tattered overcoat and blue spectacles. The
gamblers scatter like flushed partridges and the ancient bites the turf
beneath his upturned board amid a shower of silver coins. The leaders,
scared by the animated table, and the blood-curdling invocations and
wildly-waving arms and legs of the fallen croupier, shy violently in the
opposite direction and disappear into the refreshment-tent, whence issue
the crash of crockery and the shrieks of the attendant Hebes. (Lieut.-
Commander KENWORTHY should have some questions to pop about this at
Westminster when next the Irish Question comes up.)

The bookmakers are perched a-top of a grassy knoll which overlooks the
whole course, and around them surges the crowd.

* * * * *

_Scarecrow (in somebody's cast-off dinner-jacket and somebody else's
abandoned hunting breeches.)_ Kyard of the races! Kyard of the races!

_Farmer._ Here y' are. How much?

_Scarecrow._ Wan shillin'-an'-sixpence, Sorr.

_Farmer._ There's "Price wan shillin'" printed on ut, ye blagyard.

_Scarecrow._ The sixpence is for the Government's little Intertainmints
Tax, Sorr.

_Farmer._ Oh, go to the divil!

_Scarecrow._ Shure an' I will if yer honour'll give me a letther of
inthroduction. We'll call ut a shillin', thin, and I'll sthand the loss
mesilf.

[_Farmer parts with the price and the Scarecrow dodges swiftly into the
crowd. The Farmer peruses the card and frowns in a puzzled way; then the
date catches his eye and he curses and tears the list to pieces._

_Farmer._ Drat take th