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.
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