Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 346 pages of information about Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities.

Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 346 pages of information about Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities.

The Countess, anticipating the victory of her hero, had dispatched Agamemnon early in the day for a chaplet of red-and-yellow immortelles, and having switched the old cab horse up to the winning-post, she gracefully descended, without showing more of her foot and ankle than was strictly correct, and decorated his brow with the wreath, as the Yorkshireman dismounted.  Enthusiasm being always the order of the day in France, this act was greeted with the loudest acclamations, and, without giving him time to recover his wind, the populace bundled Mr. Jorrocks neck and shoulders into the cab, and seizing the old horse by the head, paraded him down the entire length of the Champ de Mars, Mr. Jorrocks bowing and kissing his hands to the assembled multitude, in return for the vivas! the clapping of hands, and the waving of ribbons and handkerchiefs that greeted him as he went.

Popularity is but a fickle goddess, and in no country more fickle than in France.  Ere the procession reached the end of the dusty plain, the mob had tailed off very considerably, and as the leader of the old white horse pulled him round to return, a fresh commotion in the distance, caused by the apprehension of a couple of pickpockets, drew away the few followers that remained, and the recently applauded and belauded Mr. Jorrocks was left alone in his glory.  He then pulled up, and taking the chaplet of immortelles from his brow, thrust it under the driving cushion of the cab, and proceeded to reinstate himself in his tight military frock, re-gird himself with his sword, and resume the cocked hat and feather.

Nothing was too good for Mr. Stubbs at that moment, and, had a pen and ink been ready, Mr. Jorrocks would have endorsed him a bill for any amount.  Having completed his toilette he gave the Yorkshireman the vacant seat in the cab, flopped the old horse well about the ears with the pig-driving whip, and trotted briskly up the line he had recently passed in triumphal procession, and wormed his way among the crowd in search of the Countess.  There was nothing, however, to be seen of her, and after driving about, and poking his way on foot into all the crowds he could find, bolting up to every lady in blue, he looked at his great double-cased gold repeater, and finding it was near three o’clock and recollecting the fete of St. Cloud, concluded her ladyship must have gone on, and Agamemnon being anxious to see it, of course was of the same opinion; so, again flopping the old horse about the ears, he cut away down the Champ de Mars, and by the direction of Agamemnon crossed the Seine by the Pont des Invalides, and gained the route to Versailles.

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Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.