[Illustration: FOUR O’CLOCK P.M.: TATTERSALL’S.] Tattersall’s is a curious sight at all times, and has something pervading it quite _sui generis_. Even when the ring is deserted by the gentleman turfites, and when no sales by auction of race-horses, hunters, carriage-horses, carriages, or fox-hounds, are proceeding in the court-yard (the auctioneer’s rostrum is close to the king-crowned, fox-decorated temple), there is ample food for observation and amusement in the contemplation of the extraordinary array of hangers-on, who, at all times and seasons, summer and winter, are to be found about the purlieus of the Corner. I do not so much speak of the mere grooms, stable-boys, coachmen, and helpers, who have horses to mind or carriages to look after. You may find their prototypes down every mews, and in every livery-stable. The originals to whom I allude are to be seen only here, and on race-courses, hanging about the grand-stand and the weighing-house. They are entirely different to the nonchalant individuals who, in short coats, and a straw in their mouths, haunt the avenues of Aldridge’s Repository, in St. Martin’s Lane. They would appertain, seemingly, to a superior class; but from top to toe—laterally, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally—they are unmistakeably horse-flesh loving, and by horse-flesh living, men. It is not but you will find white neckcloths and black broadcloth in their attire, but there is a cut to the coat, a tie to the neckcloth, that prevents the possibility of error as to their vocation. They are sporting men all over. Hard-featured, serious-looking, spare-limbed men mostly, much given to burying their hands in their coat-pockets (never in their trousers), and peaceably addicted to the wearing of broad-brimmed hats. Now, the general acceptation of a “sporting” man would give him a tall, shiny hat, with a narrow brim, and considerably cocked on one side; yet I do verily believe that, were these men attired in buttonless drab, brown beavers, striped worsted hose, and buckles, that they would preserve the same sporting identity. They are the wet Quakers of the turf. What the exact nature of their multifarious functions about horses may be, I am not rightly informed. I conjecture them to be trainers, country horse-dealers, licensed victuallers with a turn for sporting, gentlemen farmers who “breed a colt” occasionally, or, maybe, perfectly private individuals led by an irresistible penchant to devote themselves to the study and observation of horses, and led by an uncontrollable destiny to hang, their lives-long through, about the Corner. Hangers-on of a lower grade there are in plenty. Striped-sleeved waistcoats, corduroy or drab cloth smalls and leggings; nay, even the mighty plush galligaskins of coachmanhood, top boots, fur and moleskin caps, sticks with crutches and a thong at the end, to serve, if needful, as whips; horseshoe scarf pins, and cord trousers made tight at the knees, and ending in laced-up boots.