HUNTS WITH JOKROCKS 



of civic honour, but his ambition took a different 

 turn. He was for the field, not the forum. 



As a merchant he stood high country traders 

 took his teas without tasting, and his bills were 

 as good as bank-notes. Though an unlettered 

 man he had great powers of thought and expres- 

 sion in his peculiar way. He was ' highly respect- 

 able,' as they say on 'Change that is to say, he 

 was very rich, the result of prudence and economy 

 not that he was stingy, but his income out- 

 stripped his expenses, and money like snow rolls 

 up amazingly fast. 



A natural born sportsman, his lot being cast 

 behind a counter instead of in the country, is 

 one of those frolics of fortune that there is no 

 accounting for. To remedy the error of the blind 

 goddess, Mr. Jorrocks had taken to hunting as 

 soon as he could keep a horse, and though his 

 exploits were long confined to the suburban county 

 of Surrey, he should rather be * credited ' for keen- 

 ness in following the sport in so unpropitious a 

 region, than ' debited ' as a Cockney and laughed 



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