Another mystery. Derby is a hundred and twenty miles from London; and yet many of my friends assure that they will drive down without a single change of horses! Ah, then, it is no marvel, this predominance of the old England in the hippic arena, when even the ordinary horses of the carriage can travel a hundred and twenty miles—two hundred kilomètres—without fatigue.
These facts were new to me. They were also new to most of my countrymen with whom I conversed.
The Unknown—behold the Redoubtable!
IX. Vieille Ecole, Bonne Ecole.
Happily, I encounter Lord Ouiggins.
He is an aristocrat of the old rock—a little mocking, perchance, a little reserved, cold, indifferent, proud, but of an antique probity, a disinterestedness more than Roman.
He takes me under his charge.
I had been deceived. They were mocking themselves of me, those who told me the courses were at Derby. They are run on Epsom’s Salt-Downs.
“Derby” is only the title of their founder, one of those English eccentrics of whom the type is so familiar in France—poet, politician, jockey—Premier Minister of Great Britain until he was overthrown by the intrigues of Sir Benjamin Gladstone!
After one thunder-stroke, another: