Besides these, an innumerable host of well-dressed scoundrels--for whom the word “Welcher” is altogether too commendable--have come up from country quarters, where they have been playing various “little games,” all more or less discreditable, to work together for evil with their metropolitan _confreres_ for four days. Every haunt of dissipation is holding highest holiday. The stupid, obscene Cider Cellars find, for one night at least, that they have attractions still; the music-halls are tropical with heat and rankest human vegetation; Cremorne, after the crowded theatres have disgorged their steaming crowds, is like a fair. The strangers' room at all the clubs has been bespoken this night for weeks. In the card-rooms, the smoking-rooms, the billiard-rooms, there is scarcely space to move, far less to breathe in; yet there is everywhere a babblement of tongues, and the words that are most bandied about from feverish mouth to mouth, are first, _The King_, and secondly, _Menelaus_. The tout had kept his word--either from fear or nicest honour--until the stipulated week had elapsed, and then the news of the trial-race began to circulate: from his outsiders' place, to that of fourth favourite, then of third, and at last to that of second had “the French horse” gradually risen. A curious and illogical position enough--but then the turf-people _are_ illogical--for if the news that he had beaten _The King_ was true, he ought to have been first favourite; and if the news was _not_ true, he had no reason to find favour at all. As it was, however, _The King_ had come down half a point as if to meet him, to 9 to 2; while _Menelaus_ stood at 5 to 1. And had that trial-race really taken place or not? and if so, Was it on the Square? was the question which was just then agitating the Houses of Lords and Commons (nay, it was whispered, Marlborough House itself), and all the mess-tables in her Majesty's service, more than any other subject in this world. There was also a vague rumour that the favourite's “understandings” were not as they should be; that there was a contraction that might be fatal to his prospects; that the idol's feet were of clay.