The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts always are. The gingerbread was moulded in the same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined with gilt.
There was the same old trumpeting and tootling, tom-tomming, and roaring of showmen's voices. The same old roundabouts, only now they were driven by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that the whirligig caravan was travelling round the world. The fat woman, the strong man, the smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the Wilderness," that mystic and melancholy bird, the rifle galleries, the popping for nuts—behold these are they our fathers have seen.
There is nothing new under the sun—not even at Epsom. The first time I saw the wonderful crowd of the Derby Day—perhaps the largest crowd in the world—I could scarcely believe my eyes, for I found on passing through it that the hundreds of thousands of people there had nothing more to amuse them than they would have found at an ordinary country fair. Swings, roundabouts, cockshies at cocoa-nuts, rootletum, tootletum, and beer. That was all. No new amusement whatsoever: a very humdrum sort of world, my masters!
The next finest crowd is the crowd on August bank-holiday all along the Brighton beach, and there it is just the same. Nothing for the folk but Punch, brass bands, and somersaulters—dull old stories in my grandmother's time.
Xerxes offered a reward to anyone who could invent him a fresh pleasure—the multitude of the Derby Day and Brighton beach should do the same. But indeed they do, for an immense fortune would certainly be the reward of such a discoverer. One gets tired of pitching sticks at cocoa-nuts all one's time.
However, at Woolhorton nobody but the very rawest and crudest folk cared for the shows, all they did care was to alternately stand stock still and then shove. First they shoved as far as the "Lion" and had some beer, then they shoved back to the "Lamb" and had some beer, then they stood stock still in the street and blocked those who were shoving. Several thousand people were thus happily occupied, and the Lion and the Lamb laid down together peacefully that day.
Amaryllis and old Iden had in like manner to shove, for there was no other way to get through, no one thought of moving, or giving any passage, if you wanted to progress you must shoulder them aside. As Grandfather Iden could not shove very hard they were frequently compelled to wait till the groups opened, and thus it happened that Amaryllis found herself once face to face with Jack Duck.
He kind of sniggered in a foolish way at Amaryllis, and touched his hat to Iden. "You ain't a been over to Coombe lately, Mr. Iden," he said.
"No," replied the old man sharply, and went on.
Jack could hardly have struck a note more discordant to Amaryllis. The father had not been to visit his son for more than a year—she did not want unpleasant memories stirred up.