"It was all dinner time, father."
"That is the custom of gentlemen here. It is always so. Tell your mother about the races."
"I don't like the races."
"Why not?"
"Well, tell me what they were, at any rate," said Mrs. Copley. "It is the least you can do."
"I don't know how to tell you," said Dolly. "I will try. Imagine a great flat plain, mother, level as far as the eye can see. Imagine a straight line marked out, where the horses are to run; and at the end of it a post, which is the goal, and there is the judges' stand. All about this course, on both sides, that is towards the latter part of the course, fancy rows of carriages, drawn up as close as they can stand, the horses taken out; and on these carriages a crowd of people packed as thick as they can find room to sit and stand. They talk and laugh and discuss the horses. By and by you hear a cry that the horses have set off; and then everybody looks to see them coming, with all sorts of glasses and telescopes; and everybody is still, waiting and watching, until I suppose the horses get near enough for people to begin to judge how the race will turn out; and then begins the fearfullest uproar you ever heard, everybody betting and taking bets. Everybody seemed to be doing it, even ladies. And with the betting comes the shouting, and the cursing, and the cheering on this one and that one; it was a regular Babel. Even the ladies betted."
"Every one does it," said Mr. Copley.
"And the poor horses come running, and driven to run as hard as they can; beautiful horses too, some of them; running to decide all those bets! I don't think it is an amusement for civilised people."
"Why not?" said her father.
"It is barbarous. There is no sense in it. If the white horse beats the black, I'll pay you a thousand pounds; but if the black horse beats the white, you shall pay me two thousand. Is there any sense in that?"