Пользователь - WORLD'S END

A half-grown boy wasn't invited to such affairs, but there were plenty of other things he could do to keep "in the swim." He could walk by Rotten Row, and see the great ladies and gentlemen of fashion in their riding costumes, and crowds of people lined up to stare, separated from them only by a wooden railing. He could go to hear the "bell-ringing" for the Queen's birthday. He could see the coaching parade; the smart gentlemen, and even one smart lady, driving fancy turnouts with four horses, an array of guests, and two grooms sitting in back as stiff as statues. He could attend the military tournament at Olympia, and see a score of riders charging at a long hurdle from opposite directions, all leaping over it at the same moment, passing each other in the air so close that the knees of the riders often touched.

Also Lanny was invited to ride on a coach with his mother's friends to the races on Derby Day. That was the time you really saw England. Three or four hundred thousand people came out to Epsom Downs, on trains, in carriages or motorcars, or in the huge rhotorbusses which were the new feature of the town. The roads were packed all day long, first going and then coming; Epsom was described as a vast garage, and people said that soon there would be no horses at the Derby except those in the races. The common people were out for a holiday, and ate and drank and laughed and shouted without regard to etiquette. The people of fashion were there to be looked at, and they put on the finest show that money could buy.

Everybody agreed that the styles for that summer of 1914 were the most extreme since the Restoration, the Grand Monarque, the Third Empire - whatever period of history sounded most impressive. Svelte contours were gone, and flufEness was the rule; waists were becoming slimmer, side panniers were coming back, flounces were multiplied beyond reason; skirts were tight - a cause of embarrassment to ladies ascending the steps of motorcars and coaches, and the moralists commented sternly upon the unseemly exhibitions which resulted. They complained also that the distinction between evening and day frocks was almost lost; really, flesh-pink chiffon was too intime for open air! Fete and race gowns were cut low at the throat, and materials worn over the arms were so diaphanous that they were hardly to be seen at all.

Those who aimed to be really smart did not heed the moralists, but they had to heed the weather; so with these scanty costumes went capes. Everyone agreed that it was a renaissance of the cape; Venetian capes, Cavalier capes, m an teaux militaires, all made of the most exquisite materials, of silk and satin brocade, sometimes embroidered with great flowers, painted ninons and delicate doublures; the linings were velvet, always of the brightest colors, and the capes were weighted down with diamonds or other jewels, and held across the figure by straps of plaid silk or chiffon, with jeweled buckles of butterfly or flower design.

In short, the fancy of the dressmakers had been turned loose for many months, and the product was set up conspicuously on the tops of coaches or in open motorcars for the crowds to inspect. If they liked it they said so, and if they didn't they said it even louder. Fashionable society tittered over the misadventure of the Dowager Duchess of Gunpowder, a stout old lady who arrayed herself in pink taffeta, with a wide hat of soft straw covered with pink chiffon and roses, known as a "Watteau confection." In a traffic jam her carriage "was halted, and some navvies working by the road leaned on their shovels and had a good long look at the show. "Wot ho, Bill!" one of them shouted. "Wot price mutton dressed as lamb!"

Inside the racetrack the big busses were lined all the way down the straight. The weather was fine, and everybody happy. The royal family put in an early appearance, and the King and Queen stood in the royal box and received a hearty ovation. "Bumbles" pointed out to Lanny the precautions taken to keep the suffragettes from interfering with the.race; for last year one of them had dashed out and thrown herself under the horses' hoofs and got killed - "the daughter of a very good family, too," said his lordship, with disgust. To keep that from happening a second time the track had been lined with three sets of railings, and police and soldiers were watching all the way around. Every Derby receives a name, and this one was dubbed "the silent Derby," because a French horse won and two outsiders were placed; the favorites were nowhere, so that everybody lost money except the bookies.

IV

At the next week-end came the art lover Rick, and they saw the Russians in Le Coq d’ Or by Rimsky-Korsakov. They saw the foolish King Dodon with a tall gold crown and a great black bear.d to his waist, and a huge warrior in chain mail, with a curved sword half as big as himself and shining like a bass tuba. This was the Tsar's own ballet troupe, trained for the dance since early childhood, and all London raved over them. Lanny's enthusiasm for dancing came back, and he and Rick exhausted themselves trying to reproduce those amazing Muscovite leaps.

Also, they went to hear Chaliapin, an enormous blond man with a voice that filled the firmament. They went to see Westminster Abbey, and found a fashionable wedding going on; they heard the clamor of high-toned bells, and got a glimpse of the bridal pair emerging, one in a cloud of tulle, the other with a pale, peaked face, dwarfed by a tall black cylinder on top. Rick didn't seem to think very highly of the old families which ruled his country; he said the groom was probably dim-witted, while the bride would be the daughter of a brewer or a South African diamond king.

Later on came the Trooping of the King's Colours on the Horse Guards' Parade, the occasion being the King's "official birthday": a gorgeous ceremony with a troop of horsemen wearing huge bearskin hats. The King rode at their head, a frail-looking gentleman with dark brown mustaches and beard closely trimmed. They had mounted one of those bearskins on top of him, also a uniform much too large for him, loaded with gold epaulets and a belt, a wide blue sash, and a variety of stars and orders. The young Prince of Wales looked still more uncomfortable, having a pathetic thin face and a sword which he would have had a hard time brandishing.

They made the Queen colonel-in-chief of a regiment; her uniform was blue, all over gold in front, and her hat was of fur with a blue bag hanging from it, and a tall white pompon standing up a foot in the air. Lanny had seen in an American magazine a picture of a drum major in such a costume. He said that to Rick, who replied that the influence of this royal family was a very bad thing for England. "They give themselves up entirely to the tailoring and dressmaking business," said the severe young art lover. "Their friends are the big money snobs. If an artist receives honors, it is some painter of fashionable portraits. Titles are entirely a question of finance; you pay so much cash into the party treasury, and become Sir Snuffley Snooks or the Marquess of Paleale." In short, Sir Alfred Pomeroy-Nielson having got no honors for his efforts to promote little theaters in England, his eldest son thought ill of the government.

"Go and see it in action," he advised. So Lanny went on a weekday to Westminster, and was admitted to the visitors' gallery of the House of Commons, now covered with heavy wire net on account of suffragettes' attempts to throw themselves over the railing. Lanny looked down upon the members of the House, mostly wearing top hats, except for the Labour non-conformists. The front-benchers sprawled with their feet upon the bench in front of them. Any of the members, when they didn't like what was said, shouted loudly. The Labour men hated the Tories, the Tories hated the Liberals, and the Irish hated everybody. A fierce controversy was under way over the question of self-government for Ireland; the Ulstermen were swearing they would never be ruled by Catholics, and Sir Edward Carson was organizing an army and threatening civil war. In short, the Mother of Parliaments was hardly setting the best of examples to her children all over the world.