“And well, then, Milord, did you see what he did? and do you know what will be his fate?”
Question terrible!
He does not even remove the cigar from his mouth, this impassive patrician, as he answers, with a laconism which lacerates, which vibrates on my nerves, which almost makes me bound.
“Yes; cart-wheel!”
VI. London at Epsom.
Dust, heat, emotion—all stimulate thirst.
I soon forget the little Arab. There are plenty of others remaining! There are worse things in the world, too, than bottled stout. Lord Ouilliam tells me that none of the aristocracy now drink champagne in public. It excites a feeling of envy among the lower orders. On Derby’s Day, the populace gives the tone to the peerage.
The crowd; my faith, and what a crowd! There are two things in the world which a man never forgets: his first sight of the sea, and his first sight of the multitude on Epsom Downs!
What a sound, as of ocean! What infinite discords, subdued, by very force of number and of contradiction, into one sublime monotone! What minstrelsy, cosmopolitan and comprehensive—the audible expression of a Colonial System unparalleled in grandeur and extent! The Hindoo may think in his heart of the days when he fought for his country’s municipal freedom under the banner of Rammohun Roy and Nana Sahib; but look! Plaintively submissive, he strikes his tom-tom to amuse the destroyers of his race.
VII. Messieurs, faites votrejeu! Le jeu est fait!