262 



COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



calls for instant telling. For its list of historical visitors 

 is long and distinguished, and the visitors must be made 

 rotate in the order of their rotation, as a game-keeper 

 speaking of undisciplined beaters at a battue once 

 geographically remarked. 



To avoid then a too profound plunge into the past, 

 I shall skip such uncomfortably early visitors as King 

 Lucius, Ethelbert, and Augustine, who are so antique 



Falstaff Inn, West Gate, Canterbury. 



that they would be very likely to get me into trouble 

 if I meddled with them, and mention Becket, who 

 has been much overdone, only to point out that so 

 many skulls have been attributed to him, that the 

 modern inhabitants have sunk into a horrid state of in- 

 credulity as to any of them. The latest skull had been 

 discovered (by the Daily Telegraph, I believe) when I 

 was at Canterbury last ; but the burghers of Canterbury 

 when I spoke of it looked at me with a pitying smile, 



