"This London is a beastly hole," said he. "I have got to go down into that cursed fog. I wish Tattersall's was anywhere else." But he shouldered his umbrella again, and on he went.
Opposite St. George's Hospital there were a number of medical students. Two of them, regardless of the order which should always be kept on Her Majesty's highway, were wrestling. Lord Ascot paused for a moment to look at them. He heard one of the students who were looking on say to another, evidently about himself—
"By Gad! what preparations that fellow would cut up into."
"Ah!" said another, "and wouldn't he cuss and d—— under the operation neither."
"I know who that is," said a third. "That's Lord Ascot; the most infernal, headlong, gambling savage in the three kingdoms."
So Lord Ascot, in the odour of sanctity, passed down into Tattersall's yard. There was no one in the rooms. He went out into the yard again.
"Hullo, you sir! Have you seen Mr. Sloane?"
"Mr. Sloane was here not ten minutes ago, my lord. He thought your lordship was not coming. He is gone down to the Groom's Arms."
"Where the deuce is that?"
"In Chapel Street, at the corner of the mews, my lord. Fust turning on the right, my lord."