206 THE FAT OF THE LAND 



of exceeding softness. His nose was straight 

 in spite of many a contusion, and his whole 

 expression was that of a high-bred gentleman 

 somewhat the worse for wear. Sir Tom was 

 perfectly groomed when he came forth from 

 his chamber, which was usually about ten in the 

 morning. 



Those of us who had access to his rooms often 

 wondered how he ever got out of them looking so 

 immaculate, for they were a perfectly impassable 

 jungle to the stranger. Such a tangle of trunks, 

 hand-bags, rug bundles, clothes, boots, pajamas, 

 newspapers, scrap-books, B. & S. bottles, could 

 hardly be found anywhere else in the world. 

 He had a fondness for newspaper clippings, 

 and had trunks of them, sorted into bundles or 

 pasted in scrap-books. Old volumes of Bell's 

 Life filled more than one trunk, and on one 

 occasion when he and I were spending a long 

 evening together, in celebration of his recent 

 recovery from an attack of gout, and when he 

 had done more than usual justice to the B. & S. 

 bottles and less than usual justice to his gout, 

 he showed me the record of a long-gone year in 

 which this same BelPs Life called him the first 

 among the gentlemen riders in the United King- 

 dom," and proved this assertion by showing how 

 he had won most of the great steeple-chases in 

 England and Ireland, riding his own horses. 

 This was the nearest approach to boasting that 

 ever came to my knowledge in the years of our 



