James Greenwood

“ It is the figure of a baker - unmistakably a baker, though he appears abroad at an hour when all well-advised and business-minding bakers are hard at it in the depths of the bakehouse, and though his clothes have nothing of bakerish slovenliness about them and are quite free from dough stains. ”

“ But he has the pale face of the maker of bread, and that spasmodic action of the nose as though he wanted to sneeze and couldn't, which I have no doubt is a habit contracted by the hard-worked operative in his constant endeavour to keep the fine flour-dust from entering his nostrils. Moreover, the baker is a tender-footed man, and walks with a bent knee and a half-shuffling gait, as though he were picking his steps over hot bricks. ”

“ If I endeavour to recall any particular feature of the day's proceedings, or try to bring to mind any remarkable or peculiar circumstance connected with the sports, there rises before my mind's eyes a figure blotting out everything else. ”

“ The way home for journeymen bakers who have been out at work all night is not commonly up Epsom-hill, however, and it was in this direction my baker was proceeding at the same time as myself. He was seemingly deeply engaged in the perusal of a sporting newspaper, as he walked, but when I came up with him he inquired of me, with startling abruptness, what time it was. I consulted my watch, and replied that it wanted a quarter to six.
"Nonsense," he said, with disagreeable sharpness; "you're too slow. I wouldn't carry a watch at all if it was of no use but to deceive people. ”

“ I think that Atlantic will win the Derby. It isn't any what I may call supernatural fancy of mine, like it seems to be of yours, but I come at it weeks ago by plainly figuring it out. I was at Newmarket, and I saw the horse win the Two Thousand. I saw how he won it, and on the spot - leastways when I went to have a refresher at the Black Bear - I said to myself; 'Charley Watson' - that's my name, and I'm a master baker by trade" - I knew that he was a baker - "with a good business at Rotherhithe - 'Charley Watson,' I said to myself, now's your chance! ”

“ I don't know whether he was as diligently seeking me, but at all events our eyes met - the first race was over - and there he was, making the most extravagant demonstrations of delight, waving his hat, kissing his hand to me, and rapidly holding up and lowering and holding up again all his fingers and his thumbs three successive times, to make me understand, as I interpreted the movement, that he had already increased his store by thirty pounds. ”

“ But he impatiently interrupted me.
"There is no other hand," he exclaimed; "I was not quite certain of it before, and the fact is - this is quite between friends, of course - I had begun to get a little funky over it, and, on the extreme quiet, d'ye understand, raked up a bit more money - just a forty or fifty to hedge a little. I'm jolly glad that I didn't do it before I met you, and so I tell you, and here's jolly good luck to you," and the elated sporting baker took another taste out of the brandy bottle. ”

“ Just at the nick of time I fall in with a gentleman I had no more idea of meeting than the Emperor of Turkey, and you reveal to me that something - you don't know what - tells you that Atlantic will win. ”

“ One of the treats I endeavour never to miss is on "Derby" morning to mount the hill which leads up to the breezy plain, while the earliest columns of smoke are lazily rising from above the roof of the Grand Stand, giving notice that the slaves of the kitchen which exists at the heart and foundation of the vast building in question have relit the fires, in order that they may renew their tremendous task of boiling, roasting, and stewing literally for the million ”