I 2 Mr, Grimboy. 



Tom Grimboy has forgotten more than a good many of the 

 members of our redoubtable Hunt know. He lives all by 

 himself at the Grange, where he dispenses hospitality in 

 a stiff, old-fashioned sort of way. To see the old gentle- 

 man to perfection one must behold him in the evening. 

 Blue coat and brass buttons, pumps and black silk socks, 

 and such a white neckcloth ! Jovial Sir Harry Bluff 

 offended him mortally one night after dinner at the Chir- 

 pingtons, by swaggering up, just as Mr. Grimboy had 

 brought himself to anchor in front of the drawing-room 

 fire, and was helping himself to a comforting pinch of 

 snuff, and, giving him a poke in his stomach, saying, at 

 the same time, in his hearty way (Mr. Grimboy hated 

 hearty ways), ''Well, old boy, does your skin feel pretty 

 tight, heh ? " Mr. Grimboy ordered his carriage on the 

 spot, and Sir Harry and he did not speak to each other 

 for ever so long after. 



All modern innovations, more especially railroads, he 

 hates with all his heart and soul ; whilst for all institu- 

 tions of the past he has a proportionate veneration. For 

 instance he is a staunch upholder of the now defunct prac- 

 tice of duelling, indeed it is rumoured that the old Squire 

 played a prominent part in more than one affair of honour 

 in his younger days, and it is also said that, quiet old 

 gentleman as he now is, he was just as cheerful a dandy 

 as any of them in the roystering days of Carlton House 

 and the Pavilion. Sometimes when after dinner a bottle 

 of good wine has warmed the cockles of his vener- 

 able heart and made his old eyes sparkle with something 

 of their former brilliancy, he will launch out with unmis- 

 takable pleasure into stories of his goings-on in company 

 with the author of '' The School for Scandal," and Beau 



