Gilbert laughed a little. “These people interest me,” he said, rousing himself to speak. “Don’t you realise what they all mean? Every one of them with a separate and distinct individuality, every one with a hope or a fear hugged tight in his bosom, every one with the capacity for love, or hate, or sorrow. Look at that man!” he said, and pointed with his long, nervous finger. The man he indicated stood in a little oasis of green. Hereabouts the people on the course had so directed their movements as to leave an open space, and in the centre stood a man of medium height, a black bowler on the back of his head, a long, thin cigar between his white, even teeth. He was too far away for Leslie to distinguish these particulars, but Gilbert Standerton’s imagination filled in the deficiencies of vision, for he had seen this man before. As if conscious of the scrutiny, the man turned and came slowly towards the rails where the coach stood. He took the cigar from his mouth and smiled as he recognised the occupant of the box-seat. “How do you do, sir?” His voice sounded shrill and faint, as if an immeasurable distance separated them, but he was evidently shouting to raise his voice above the growling voices of the crowd. Gilbert waved his hand with a smile, and the man turned with a raise of his hat, and was swallowed up in a detachment of the crowd which came eddying about him. “A thief,” said Gilbert, “on a fairly large scale--his name is Wallis; there are many Wallises here. A crowd is a terrible spectacle to the man who thinks,” he said half to himself. The other glanced at him keenly. “They’re terrible things to get through in a thunderstorm,” he said, practically. “I vote we go along and claim the car.” Gilbert nodded. He rose stiffly, like a man with cramp, and stepped slowly down the little ladder to the ground. They passed through the barrier and crossed the course, penetrated the little unsaddling enclosure, through the long passages where press-men, jockeys and stewards jostled one another every moment of race days, to the roadway without. In the roped garage they found their car, and, more remarkable, their chauffeur. The first flicker of blue lightning had stabbed twice to the Downs, and the heralding crash of thunder had reverberated through the charged air, when the car began to thread the traffic toward London. The storm, which had been brewing all the afternoon, broke with terrific fury over Epsom. The lightning was incessant, the rain streamed down in an almost solid wall of water, crash after crash of thunder deafened them. The great throng upon the hill was dissolving as though it was something soluble; its edges frayed into long black streamers of hurrying people moving toward the three railway stations. It required more than ordinary agility to extricate the car from the chaos of charabancs and motor-cabs in which it found itself.