Charlie’s cart (it is quite impossible for us, who have known him nearly two days, to call him Townley any more) was very high, very thick, and very heavy, and was purchased in Long Acre; the horses, which answered the same description, were also imported; and the harness, which corresponded to the cart in thickness and heaviness, came from Cheapside. Townley’s coat, clothes, top-hat, whip, and gloves were all native of Bond Street or Piccadilly; and in fact, the only thing about him which was produced fairly beyond the London bills of mortality was the very undoubted case of green Havana cigars that he offered to Arthur the moment they had left the Park. They drove up Fifth Avenue, past the same procession of pedestrians they had seen the day before, and Arthur could not but note how much more interesting they seemed to their fellow-creatures from the summit of their dog-cart, and how the interest had become mutual as they entered the Park and joined the procession of T-carts, phaetons, and victorias. He admired the dexterity with which Charlie kept the tandem-reins and the whip properly assorted in his left hand, while the right was continually occupied in raising his hat to pretty women who had bowed. The Hill-and-Dale Club, the newly established country institution, a sort of shrine or sacred grove whither city folk betook themselves to commune with nature, was in Westchester County, not far from the historic banks of the Bronx. An old country mansion, former quarters of Continental generals, rendezvous of Skinners and Cowboys, had been bought, adorned, developed, provided with numerous easy chairs and sporting prints; and lo! it was a club. The wide lawn in front was turned into a half-mile track for running races; a shooting range and tennis-grounds were made behind; and you had a small Arcadia for mundane pleasures. Here could tired mortals loaf, chat, eat, drink, smoke, bet, gamble, race, take exercise, and see their fellow-creatures and their wives and cattle. Expatriated Britons found here a blessed spot of rest, a simulacrum of home, where trotting races were tabooed, where you were waited on by stunted grooms, and could ride after your hounds, and always turned to the left in passing. Before this Elysium did Charlie pull up, and throwing the reins to a stable-boy, led Arthur to the inner Penetralia. After inscribing his name in the club-book (making the fourth, thought Arthur) they went to the smoke-room, where they met a dozen of the fellows (some of whose faces seemed already familiar to him) and executed the customary libation. Here Charlie stood boldly up to a composite ambrosia of which the base was brandy, saying that he thought a fellow deserved it after that drive. Some conversation followed; but I sadly fear ’twould not be worth the trouble of reporting in cold print. Then Charlie proposed they should go look at the stables; and they did.