Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/47

 scholar, fumbling his faded leaves, and here the scented actor, dangling his showy seals. Here the glib politician, crying his legislative panaceas; and here the peripatetic Cheap-Jack, holding aloft his quack cures for human ills. Here the sleek capitalist, and there the sinewy labourer; here the man of science, and here the shoe-black; here the poet, and here the water-rate collector; here the cabinet minister, and there the ballet-dancer. Here a red-nosed publican, shouting the praises of his vats; and here a temperance lecturer at fifty pounds a night; here a judge, and there a swindler; here a priest, and there a gambler. Here a jewelled duchess, smiling and gracious; here a thin lodging-house keeper, irritable with cooking; and here a wabbling, strutting thing, tawdry in paint and finery.

Cheek by cheek, they struggle onward. Screaming, cursing, and praying, laughing, singing, and moaning, they rush past side by side. Their speed never slackens, the race never ends. There is no wayside rest for them, no halt by cooling fountains, no pause beneath green shades. On, on, on—on through the heat and the crowd and the dust—on, or they will be trampled down, and lost—on, with throbbing brain and tottering limbs—on, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred, and a gurgling groan tells those behind they may close up another space.