In addition to all these stalls and booths, the sellers of “race cards” are much in evidence, and a long procession of men with that characteristic equipment of the racing-man, the field-glasses slung over the shoulders, winds slowly up the long way to the Stand. These are devotees of the great goddess Chance, who, like Justice, is blind. They do not hurry, because they have often trod the same path: they are neither joyful nor gloomy, but just stolid and businesslike, because they have come this way with such a succession of varied fortune that they take gain or loss with unchanged demeanour and equal fortitude, and when they return you shall seek in vain to guess the luck of the day from their unemotional countenances. The racing is all done by 3.30 p.m., and in another hour the course is clear, the town empty of strangers. But the inns are filled with stable-folk and the many nondescript hangers-on of a great racing centre. As the evening wears away even the inns clear, and at ten o’clock all is quiet, except perhaps for a painful orchestra of three itinerant musicians playing injuriously outside the “Black Bear.” A drizzly rain falls and the musicians disperse, greatly to the relief of the ear that listens, not so much because it would as because it must. Newmarket’s race-day is done, and the cats make love, undisturbed, in the porticoes. Only within the mansions of the great is the excitement of the day continued, and there they play bridge until morning glints greyly through the shutters XXIII [Illustration: YARD OF THE “WHITE HART,” NEWMARKET.] THE houses of this broad street are curiously irregular. Great palatial mansions alternate with humble taverns; the busy “White Hart” stands next door to the Duke of Devonshire’s house, and shops elbow other imposing residences of the great. On the right hand, as you enter the town, is the large red-brick pile of Queensberry House, built a few years ago by Lord Wolverton, and at first styled “Ugly House,” from a successful racehorse of that name; and everywhere in the town its turfy sympathies are declared in the villas christened with titles that mean much to those versed in turf history. The customary “Elms,” “Limes,” and “Montserrats” of villadom here give place to “Bend Or,” “St. Gatien,” and other horsey mottoes. But the town has every reason to regret the past. In days before railways, a race-meeting meant these great establishments being occupied for days at a time; now it is easily possible to return comfortably to London in the evening, they are often in use only for a few hours, and many have long been to let. Where the Palace stood, a Congregational Chapel and a row of shops front the street.