i8o Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



ride to hounds or shoot driven grouse, who bears 

 no crest and wears no livery, is unworthy of them ; 

 accordingly, when they meet a man who in his 

 turn mounts the pedestal, they look up to worship, 

 instead of looking down to despise. 



The Moral Idiot is sent abroad because England 

 is too right and tight a place for him. In the West 

 he finds a climate and a people more adapted to 

 his idiosyncracies. If you wish to play the dog in 

 England, well-meaning friends insist on the muzzle 

 and the chain. In the West you can run riot. 



I remember a man who charmed the good and 

 bad of his acquaintance by his geniality and fine 

 presence. He was the son of an officer in a crack 

 regiment, and although he had failed to pass into 

 Sandhurst, he had taken high honours as a bachelor 

 of those arts which please everybody except per- 

 haps the Army Examiners. This one raced down 

 the slopes of Avernus ! He was so big and so 

 powerful that those of his fellow-countrymen who 

 tried to stop him were simply knocked head over 

 heels, or else were constrained to follow him. But 

 we hoped that he would pull up before he reached 

 the bottom, because he was so cheery, so generous, 

 so plucky, and because — strongest argument of all 



— he had such nice people, whose very photographs 



— so to speak — were letters of credit. Now the 

 photographs of, let us say the Family Fool's nearest 

 and dearest are generally kept under lock and key. 

 Poor Johnnie, with all his stupidity and simplicity, 

 is dimly aware that he cannot digest his husks be- 

 neath the reproachful eyes of those fond angels, 

 his mother and sisters; so he lays their portraits. 



