Excerpt from The Rock Ahead, Vol. 1 of 2: A Novel

It was all right for the bookmakers this time at Brighton: the favourites, against which so much money had been staked, had been beaten, and dark horses, scarcely heard of, and backed for nothing, had carried off the principal prizes. So it followed that most of the gentry of the betting-ring, instead of hurrying off to the scene of their next trials of fortune, finding themselves with plenty of money in their pockets at a pleasant place in lovely weather, made up their minds to remain there during the intervening Saturday and Sunday, and to drop business so far as possible until the Monday morning, when they would speed away by the early express trains.