Perhaps, however, Lucy was thinking of the peril, not the profit of the
thing.
The young ladies on the stand eye her with mingled feelings of pity and
disdain, while the elderly ones shake their heads, call her a bold
hussy--declare she's not so pretty--adding that they 'wouldn't have come if
they'd known,' &c. &c.
But it is half-past two (an hour and a half after time), and there is at
last a disposition evinced by some of the parties to go to the post.
Broad-backed parti-coloured jockeys are seen converging that way, and the
betting-men close in, getting more and more clamorous for odds. What a
hubbub! How they bellow! How they roar! A universal deafness seems to have
come over the whole of them. 'Seven to one 'gain the Bart.!' screams
one--'I'll take eight!' roars another. 'Five to one agen Herc'les!' cries a
third--'Done!' roars a fourth. 'Twice over!' rejoins the other--'Done!'
replies the taker. 'Ar'll take five to one agin the Daddy!'--'I'll lay
six!' 'What'll any one lay 'gin Parvo?' And so they raise such an uproar
that the squeak, squeak, squeak of the
'Devil among the tailors'
is hardly heard.
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