but if actual profanity was avoided, the dear old boy 

 all unconsciously afforded strong support to those 

 who hold that a man must find relief in vigorous ex- 

 pression. To do this, without violating his principles, 

 he invented words and phrases, meaningless in them- 

 selves but in general outline, so to say, resembling the 

 worst in vogue ; and the effect produced by them 

 upon the sensitive was simply horrifying. Teddy 

 himself was blissfully unconscious of this, for his lan- 

 guage, being scrupulously innocent, was deemed by 

 him to be suited to all circumstances and to every 

 company. The inevitable consequence was that the 

 first impression produced by him on the few women 

 he ever met was that of an abandoned old reprobate 

 whose scant veil of disguise only made the outrage 

 of his language more marked. Poor old Teddy ! 

 Kindest and gentlest and dearest of souls ! How he 

 would have stared at this, speechless with surprise ; 

 and how we used to laugh at what some one called his 

 * glittering paro-fanities ! ' Pity it is that they too 

 must go ; for one dare not reproduce the best of them. 

 It was between eight and nine o'clock on the last 

 day of our stay ; Francis and I were fit again, and 

 Jock's feet, thanks to care and washing and plenty of 

 castor oil, no longer troubled him ; we were examin- 

 ing our boots re-soled now with raw hide in the rough 

 but effective veld fashion ; Teddy was holding forth 

 about the day's chase whilst he cut away the pith of 

 a koodoo's horns and scraped the skull ; others were 

 busy on their trophies too ; and the kaffirs round 

 their own fire were keeping up the simultaneous 



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