Slough is quite modern and unremarkable, but it is rapidly building up legends of its own. There have, for instance, been many strange thefts on the roads, from time to time, but none perhaps stranger than the purloining, two years ago, of the drinking-fountain which used to stand at the entrance to Slough, where the road branches off to Uxbridge. Until some unusually acquisitive folk came along and carried it away with them, there was at that corner a fountain of bronze and marble, fourteen feet in height, the bronze upper part weighing nearly half a ton. It acted also as a finger-post, directing strayed cyclists in the way they should go. The good folks of Slough went to bed one night and saw their fountain standing where it had been used to stand for years past; but in the morning, when they arose and went forth about their business, the fountain was gone! Nothing but the plinth was left. Some mad wag suggested that one of the many cyclists who frequent the Bath Road had taken it home with him as a memento of Slough; but it seems that a gang of original-minded thieves made away with it for the sake of the bronze, which, when broken up, must have brought them a good sum. At any rate, it seems quite beyond the bounds of possibility that Slough will ever see its fountain again. [Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, FROM THE ROAD NEAR SLOUGH.] XVIII It requires the specialized knowledge of a district surveyor to determine where Slough ends and Salt Hill begins, although probably it would be a shrewd guess to say that the roads which cross the Bath Road in the midst of Slough, and go respectively left and right to Windsor and Stoke Poges, form the dividing line. For all practical purposes, however, the places are one. Salt Hill has decayed, rather than grown, while the town of Slough (unlovely name!) is almost wholly a creation of the railway. Not only strangers have noted the unpleasing name of the place, but some of the inhabitants even endeavoured to change it a few years ago. The proposition was to rechristen it "Upton Royal," Upton being a hamlet near by, the "Royal" a bright idea of the local boot-lickers, who wanted to emphasize the fact of their proximity to Windsor. The project fell through. [Sidenote: _A TRAGICAL DINNER_]