"Jest ez you please, Mr. Carpenter. It's easy enough to charge up a poor horse to the account of a rider. Here's the boodle." [Sidenote: DEPARTURE FOR THE DERBY] And so another race was arranged, and Mr. Carpenter went among us and assured that his own son should ride the next time, and there would be no trouble about it. We consulted all the next week, and Mr. Scobey was approached on the subject. Mr. Scobey assured us that he knew "Nero," and knew his own horse. "Nero" was good for a long race, but for a dash of a mile "Calico" could get away with him every time. We shared Mr. Scobey's opinion, and to Mr. Carpenter's disgust, Plymouth wagered all the money it could raise upon "Calico." It requires but few words to state the result. "Calico" won the first heat easily, and "Nero" won the other two just as easily, and Plymouth was again bankrupt. And then one of the riders who was disappointed in his share of the plunder, came to the front and made known what, if we had not been an entire menagerie of asses, we might have known in advance, that Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Scobey were in partnership, and that "Calico" was a horse hired from Cleveland for the occasion, and that it was a very ingenious scheme put up by Mr. Carpenter to victimize his neighbors, and that out of the speculation the two had made a very nice lot of money. I don't pretend to say that this has anything to do with the Derby, but it illustrates the morals of the turf so well that I could not help putting it upon paper. Racing is about the same thing everywhere, except upon Epsom Downs. These races are conducted fairly, for they are under the patronage of men to whom the honor of owning a winning horse is more than any amount of money that can possibly be won. The English noblemen want this honor, and they spend fabulous amounts of money to attain it. I won't say that the Duke of Wellington would have exchanged Waterloo for the Derby, but I do say that if after Waterloo he could have had a horse capable of taking the prize, he would have died better satisfied with himself. Thirty Americans were in the party that, on the morning of the first of June, left the American Exchange at Charing Cross for Epsom Downs. It was a very jolly party, and none of the accompaniments were forgotten. An Englishman does nothing without a great plenty of eating and drinking, and so the inside of one of the immense omnibusses--"breaks" they call them--was filled with great hampers of lunch, and wine, and things of that nature. As early as it was all the avenues leading to the Downs were literally packed with conveyances, to say nothing of the railroad trains which passed in quick succession, and such a motley procession! There were lords and ladies, merchants and clerks, prostitutes and gamblers, workingmen and beggars, sewing-girls and bar-maids,--in fact every sort and condition of people, who had for one day thrown care to the winds and were on pleasure bent.