menacing crowd, protected by friends, and
looking the worse for wear; which is a rough
proceeding, though animating to see from a
pleasant distance. After the great event,
rills begin to flow from the pincushion towards
the railroad; the rills swell into rivers;
the rivers soon unite into a lake. The lake
floats Mr. Goodchild into Doncaster, past the
Itinerant personage in black, by the way-side
telling him from the vantage ground of a
legibly printed placard on a pole that for all
these things the Lord will bring him to judgment.
No turtle and venison ordinary this
evening; that is all over. No Betting at
the rooms; nothing there but the plants in
pots, which have, all the week, been stood
about the entry to give it an innocent
appearance, and which have sorely sickened by
this time.

Saturday. Mr. Idle wishes to know at
breakfast, what were those dreadful groanings
in his bedroom doorway in the night?
Mr. Goodchild answers, Nightmare. Mr.
Idle repels the calumny, and calls the waiter.
The Angel is very sorry—had intended to
explain; but you see, gentlemen, there was a
gentleman dined down stairs with two more,
and he had lost a deal of money, and he
would drink a deal of wine, and in the night
he "took the horrors," and got up; and as
his friends could do nothing with him he
laid himself down, and groaned at Mr. Idle's
door. "And he DID groan there," Mr. Idle
says; "and you will please to imagine me
inside, 'taking the horrors' too!"

So far, the picture of Doncaster on the
occasion of its great sporting anniversary,
offers probably a general representation of
the social condition of the town, in the past
as well as in the present time. The sole local
phenomenon of the current year, which may
be considered as entirely unprecedented in
its way, and which certainly claims, on that
account, some slight share of notice, consists
in the actual existence of one remarkable
individual, who is sojourning in Doncaster,
and who, neither directly nor indirectly, has
anything at all to do, in any capacity whatever,
with the racing amusements of the
week. Ranging throughout the entire crowd
that fills the town, and including the inhabitants
as well as the visitors, nobody is to be
found altogether disconnected with the business
of the day, excepting this one unparalleled
man. He does not bet on the races,
like the sporting men. He does not assist
the races, like the jockeys, starters, judges,
and grooms. He does not look on at the
races, like Mr. Goodchild and his fellow-
spectators. He does not profit by the races,
like the hotel-keepers and the trades-people.
He does not minister to the necessities of the
races, like the booth-keepers, the postilions,
the waiters, and the hawkers of Lists. He
does not assist the attractions of the races,
like the actors at the theatre, the riders at
the circus, or the posturers at the Poses
Plastiques. Absolutely and literally, he is
the only individual in Doncaster who stands
by the brink of the full-flowing race-
stream, and is not swept away by it in common
with all the rest of his species. Who is
this modern hermit, this recluse of the St.
Leger-week, this inscrutably ungregarious
being, who lives apart from the amusements
and activities of his fellow-creatures? Surely,
there is little difficulty in guessing that
clearest and easiest of all riddles. Who could
he be, but Mr. Thomas Idle?

Thomas had suffered himself to be taken to
Doncaster, just as he would have suffered
himself to be taken to any other place in the
habitable globe which would guarantee him
the temporary possession of a comfortable
sofa to rest his ankle on. Once established
at the hotel, with his leg on one cushion and
his back against another, he formally declined
taking the slightest interest in any circumstance
whatever connected with the races, or
with the people who were assembled to see
them. Francis Goodchild, anxious that the
hours should pass by his crippled travelling-
companion as lightly as possible, suggested
that his sofa should be moved to the window,
and that he should amuse himself by looking
out at the moving panorama of humanity,
which the view from it of the principal street
presented. Thomas, however, steadily
declined profiting by the suggestion.

"The farther I am from the window," he
said, "the better, Brother Francis, I shall be
pleased. I have nothing in common with
the one prevalent idea of all those people
who are passing in the street. Why should
I care to look at them ?"

"I hope I have nothing in common with
the prevalent idea of a great many of them,
either," answered Goodchild, thinking of the
sporting gentlemen whom he had met in the
course of his wanderings about Doncaster.
"But, surely, among all the people who are
walking by the house, at this very moment,
you may find——"

"Not one living creature," interposed
Thomas, " who is not, in one way or another,
interested in horses, and who is not, in a
greater or less degree, an admirer of them.
Now, I hold opinions in reference to these
particular members of the quadruped creation,
which may lay claim (as I believe) to the
disastrous distinction of being unpartaken
by any other human being, civilised or savage,
over the whole surface of the earth. Taking
the horse as an animal in the abstract,
Francis, I cordially despise him from every
point of view."

"Thomas," said Goodchild, "confinement
to the house has begun to affect your biliary
secretions. I shall go to the chemist's and
get you some physic."

"I object," continued Thomas, quietly
possessing himself of his friend's hat, which
stood on a table near him,—"I object, first,