The dust was terrible. On either side of the track the hedges and banks were as white as the road. The horses pulled well, and even hanging on the step Edwin found it difficult to keep up with them. At the crest of the hill the driver whipped them into a trot. Edwin let go the step and was cursed fluently by the coster for standing in the way of his donkey-cart. His friend waved him good-bye. He found himself caught up in a stream of other walkers, hurrying in a bee-line for the grand stand, now distantly visible with the royal standard drooping above it. Behind him and in front the black snake of that procession stretched, sliding, literally, over the shiny convolutions of the Down that the feet of the foremost had polished, and moving in a sort of vapour of its own, compact of beer and strong tobacco and intolerable human odours. From the crown of the Downs Edwin looked back at the playing-fields, the tiny white figures at the nets and in the fives-court that sometimes stopped in their play to watch the black serpent in whose belly he now moved. They seemed very near—far too near to be comfortable; and even though he knew that nobody down there could possibly see him, he felt happier when a billow of the Down hid the plain from sight. It was only when he reached the grand stand, losing himself in the thick of the crowd that clustered about it, that he began to feel safe. He looked at his watch and found that he had a quarter of an hour to spare. A little old man in seedy black clothes grabbed his elbow fiercely. “Young sir, young sir,” he said, “take my advice . . . gratis; free; for nothing.” He laughed, and Edwin saw gray bristles stretched on his underlip. “Take my advice. Never expose your watch at a race-meeting. Myself . . . I’ve learnt it from long experience, my own and my friends’. . . . Never even take a watch when I go racing. No, I leave it at home. A beautiful half-hunter by Benson of Ludgate Hill, with enamelled face. Yes. . . . You take my advice. A thing to always remember. Yes. . . .” Edwin seriously thanked him. A roar went up from the crowd. “The Prince. The Prince has entered the Royal Box,” said the old man. “God bless him.” He raised a dusty top-hat. An extraordinary gesture for this wrinkled, gnomish creature. “Yes,” he mumbled; “a handsome time-piece. . . . Benson of Ludgate Hill. A very prominent firm. We shall see nothing here. You follow me.”