It is an inn, and the rods are to save the panes from the impact of an excited toper's arm.
The talk to-day, as the brown brandy, which the paler cognac has not yet superseded, is consumed, and the fumes of coarse tobacco and the smell of spilt beer and the faint sickly odour of evaporating spirits overpower the flowers, is of horses.

The stable lads from the training stables far up on the Downs drop in or call at the door without dismounting.

Once or twice in the day a tout calls and takes his 'grub,' and scribbles a report in the little back parlour.

Sporting papers, beer-stained and thumb-marked, lie on the tables; framed portraits of racers hang on the walls.

Burly men, who certainly cannot ride a race, but who have horse in every feature, puff cigars and chat in jerky monosyllables that to an outsider are perfectly incomprehensible.