Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

LORD ASCOT'S LAST ACT OF FOLLY. 375
CHAPTER LIX.
LORD ASCOT'S CROWNING ACT OF FOLLY.
LORD ASCOT, with his umbrella over his shoulder, swung on
down the street southwestward. The town was pleasant in the
higher parts, and so he felt inclined to prolong his walk. He
turned to the right into Park Lane.
He was a remarkable-looking man. So tall, so broad, with
such a mighty chest, and such a great, red, hairless, cruel face
above it, that people, when he paused to look about him, as he
did at each street corner, turned to look at him. He did not
notice it; he was used to it. And, besides, as he walked there
were two or three words ringing yet in his ears which made him
look less keenly than usual after the handsome horses and pretty
faces which he met in his walk.
"0 Ascot, Ascot! will nothing save you from the terrible
hereafter'?"
" Confound those old women, more particularly when they take
to religion. Always croaking. And grandma Ascot, too, as
plucky and good an old soul as any in England, - as good a judge
of a horse as William Day, - taking to that sort of thing. Hang
it! it was unendurable. It was bad taste, you know, putting such
ideas into a fellow's head. - London was dull enough, after Paris,
without that."
So thought Lord Ascot, as he stood in front of Dudley House,
and looked southward. The winter sun was feebly shining
where he was, but to the south there was a sea of fog, out of
which rose the Wellington statue, looking more exasperating than
ever, and the two great houses at the Albert Gate.
"This London is a beastly hole," said he. "I have got to go
down into that cursed fog. I wish Tattersalls' was anywhere
else." But he shouldered his umbrella again, and on he went.
Opposite St. George's Hospital there were a number of medical students. Two of them, regardless of the order which should
always be kept on her Majesty's highway, were wrestling. Lord
Ascot paused for a moment to look at them. He heard one of
the students who were looking on say to another, evidently about
himself, -
"By Gad! what preparations that fellow would cut up into."
"Ah! " said another, "and would n't he cuss and d - under
operation, neither."