when he did speak it was in the tone of a man who was drunk.

"Give us your hand," said he. "Now, say that you'll get me the job if you like the plan, and it ever comes to being a job, and I'll tell you something." I declined to bind myself on the terms suggested, and told him he could please himself about telling me his secrets.

But you won't blab?"

"No; I won't blab." "Very well. Lookee here: I'm a man that's willin' to do my twelvemonths' hard labour for a thousand pounds." He brought his brandied breath close to my ear as he disclosed this astounding fact in a whisper, and squeezed my hand which he still held in his, as though to check any exclamation of amazement I might be betrayed into making.

"And d'ye know what I'm willin' to do twelvemonths' hard labour for?" he continued presently. I did not.

"I'm ready and willin' to do it for the sum named— made right and tight for me when I come out, mind yer, and no gammon-for shootin' a horse. Lookee here!" We had loitered so that the two old tramps with the pail and the string at this moment came up with us, but a volley of oaths from my confidential friend drove them to the other side of the road.

"Lookee here," he continued, when they were far enough off: "I've reckoned it up, and its as easy as can be. Let somebody take me in hand-bettin' coves with money, I mean. If one ain't enough, let three or four of 'em go in Co. and do it. Let 'em take me in hand and arrange, and then go and lay any amount—it don't matter how much-hundreds of thousands if they like—agin the horse that's the favourite, and I'll be there

on the race-day and on the spot, and I'll put a bullet behind the favourite's ear and drop him as he runs. I'm a dead shot, and I could do it as easy as kiss my hand, with either rifle or pistol; and I'm ready to do it on them there terms, and do my twelvemonths' hard labour for it."

He brought his confidential communication to an abrupt conclusion, and for a few moments the nature of it so amazed me that we tramped on a bit in silence. "Well," said he presently, and with his voice growing huskier, "what do you say?"

"I'll consider over it," I answered, scarcely knowing what to say.

"Come and consider over it now, then," he rejoined, spying a green bank by the roadside, and making a tipsy clutch at me, partly to save himself from stumbling and partly to drag me to the bank. Come and sit down along o' me, and we'll consider it out, and arrange it afore we go another step."

66

But I avoided his grasp, and he staggered to the bank by himself, and, trying to sit down on it, tilted over, and lay on his back. I did not help him up, although he swore in a variety of oaths, how he would serve me if I did not. I had had enough of him, and, leaving him howling, tramped on to overtake my comrades of the pail and string.

I have already taken note of a certain barrow-load of fried fish, covered over with a tarpaulin, which two industrious fellows were hauling along, pushing, and pulling, and finding it terribly hard work. Likewise mention has been made of a gang of five young gentlemen, professional boxers, who were bound for Epsom, carrying with them the tools of their craft. In a secluded spot we found that the former had suffered considerably

at the hands of the latter. According to the almost tearful account of the poor fishmongers, the five gallant members of the P. R., sniffing the fried fish, it would seem, and on that account bent on picking a quarrel, had insisted on the already over-taxed barrow-men adding to their load the sack in which the boxinggloves, &c., were stored.

This unreasonable request was not unnaturally objected to, on which, as punishment for their insolence, two of the P. R. gentry punched the heads of the fishmen, while the other three whipped off the tarpaulin and possessed themselves each of as much as he could carry in his arms, and decamped with it to a neighbouring field; and there the villains, all five of them, sat perched on a rail like carrion crows, yelling laughter and oaths, and ravenously devouring their plunder. But there was no help for it. Of course there were no policemen about, and there could be no doubt that the five young gentlemen would keep their word as regards the smashing and gouging that should be visited on any one who dared approach them. My comrade, the valiant old harness-maker, proffered his willingness to “make one” to do it, and I hope that the umbrella cove was not such a coward but that he would have made another; other passing tramps, however, had their own business to mind, and there was nothing left but to advise the fishmongers to push on, and avoid another visit from the robbers. And so they took our advice, and we kept them company, assisting them with an occasional push up, till, at about a quarter to one in the morning, Epsom town was reached.

Epsom town, but not the end of the tramp's weary journeying. Tramps whose destination is the racecourse may not tarry in Epsom town even for a few

R

hours' rest. To be sure, there may be reason in this arrangement. Epsom town is not responsible for Epsom race-course, and it would be somewhat hard if the peace-loving inhabitants were doomed once a year to be neighbourly for three or four days with the squalor and dregs of metropolitan society. It would by no means add to the value of house property there were it understood that, in the springtime of every year, just when the fruit and flower gardens attached to the villas were at their gayest and sweetest, there was a possibility of their being taken possession of, and mayhap stripped and trampled over by a ruthless crew from the vilest slums of London. Still it does seem cruelly hard that, having so far completed their pilgrimage, these poor wretches, with twenty miles of travel-stain scored on them, with their tired feet feeling like lead, and their eyes almost as heavy for want of sleep, should be allowed no halt at Epsom. They must "move on." They must retreat or advance, for the town, which is most vigilantly officered by police, will allow them no alternative.

Rather early on the morrow-on Derby morning, that is to say-curious to discover how my two old gentlemen had fared, I mounted the hill of chalk, and approached the Downs and the Grand Stand, from the summit of which there mingled with the mist much. smoke from chimney-pots, showing that, down in the depths of the enormous kitchen, quarters of lamb by the score, and chickens and ducklings by the hundred, and giant joints of beef were still revolving on the spits in preparation for the demands of the hungry host who would, in a few hours, clamour for sustenance. Fires were burning in other places; but they were of a much humbler sort - those that crackled under the slung

pots of the gipsies; and naked swarms of the juvenile members of the tribe, having crawled out of the filthy canvas lairs in which they roost, crouched round about them eager for the time of kettle-boiling and breakfast.

But of those who had lodged on the Downs through the preceding night all were not early risers. There were scores-hundreds, I may say, and still be fairly within the mark-who seemed to have arrived so far in the dark; and, casting hopelessly about for anything in the shape of shelter, just dropped down as does a sheep or a cow-with this difference, that the cow or the sheep does compose itself for rest decently, while the wornout tramp does not. But it is only the adult males, the young tramps and the old tramps, who lie about so. There are scores of women cadgers and fusee sellers; but they huddle together against the wooden walls of the tall Grand Stand, that in a few hours will bloom like a prodigious bouquet and flash in the sun, all so rich and gay, as though there were no such things as poverty and rags and hunger in the world. They cluster together, those wretched women some with babes at their breasts, and others with children of tender years gathering in under their old shawls and draggletail gowns, in some such manner as a hen gathers her chicks, but far less effectually and warmly; and here they will remain, like paupers gathered about the doors of a workhouse casual ward, until such time as the business of the day begins to stir, and the active police, who have lodged at the Grand Stand, and who have breakfasted, and are smart and fresh and fit for duty, bid them "clear out," and they are absorbed in the gathering crowd.

At present, however,-half-past six A.M.-there is no crowd, nor any sign of one. There is business doing,