The Rock Ahead: A Novel. (Vol. 1)

Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page Scan Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=kbZMAAAAcAAJ (the Bavarian State Library)
My dear Sir,
Although I have not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I venture to ask you to accept the dedication of this book, in slight acknowledgment of the admirable manner in which you have reproduced two of my previous stories ( Broken to Harness and The Forlorn Hope ) in the pages of the Revue des Deux Mondes , and of the flattering way in which you have frequently referred to my writings in that excellent periodical.
Faithfully yours,
EDMUND YATES.
London, April 1868.
Hot in Brighton, very hot. The August sun reflected off white-chalk cliff and red-brick pavement, and the sea shining and sparkling like a sapphire; the statue of George the Fourth, in its robe of verdigris, looking on in blighted perspiration at the cabmen at its base, as though imploring a drink; the cabmen lolling undemonstratively on the boxes of their vehicles, not seeking for employment, and--partly by reason of the heat, but more, perhaps in consequence of the money received recently at the races--rather annoyed than otherwise when their services were called into requisition. For the Brighton races had just taken place, and the town, always so full, had been more crammed than ever. All the grand hotels had been filled with the upper ten thousand, who moved easily over from Chichester and Worthing and Bognor, where they had been staying for Goodwood, which immediately precedes Brighton; and all the lodgings had been taken by the betting-men and the turfites,--the professionals, with whom the whole affair is the strictest matter of business, and to whom it is of no interest whether the race is run at Torquay or Wolverhampton, in blazing sunshine or pouring hailstorm, so long as the right thing comes off, and they land the winner.
It was all right for the bookmakers this time at Brighton: the favourites, against which so much money had been staked, had been beaten, and dark horses, scarcely heard of, and backed for nothing, had carried off the principal prizes. So it followed that most of the gentry of the betting-ring, instead of hurrying off to the scene of their next trials of fortune, finding themselves with plenty of money in their pockets, at a pleasant place in lovely weather, made up their minds to remain there during the intervening Saturday and Sunday, and to drop business so far as possible until the Monday morning, when they would speed away by the early express-trains.