The Bore of the Hunt. 183 



you fellows join me in importing some ? " William 

 Waggleton, who is listening, expresses his opinion that 

 they can do very well without jackals, ^^and Jackasses too, 

 for that matter," he adds with a sneer, eyeing Gander as 

 he speaks, and winking to the company at the same time. 

 The jackal scheme is George's one topic of conversation 

 for the rest of the day. He can't get it out of his perverse 

 noddle at all, and there is scarcely a member of the Hunt, 

 with the exception of Lord Daisyfield, whom he does not 

 drive nearly wild in the course of the day, by dinning his 

 senseless idea into their ears. Another day he will ride 

 up to you, his eyes staring out of his head, and mouth open, 

 as usual, and beg you to tell him, as if it was a question of 

 the most vital importance, how far you think it is between 

 Norbury Church and Chucklebury Common, because 

 Tomkins, with whom he has a sporting bet on of a 

 shilling, says it is so and so, and he is quite sure he 

 (Tomkins) is utterly wrong. The next time, the exact 

 length of the Slopford tunnel will be the puzzle that he 

 calls on you and other unfortunates to assist him to solve. 

 Though Gander does not shoot, whenever he hears of a 

 battue coming off in his immediate neighbourhood, he has 

 a nasty habit of coming, uninvited, to look on at the fun 

 and making himself a nuisance generally. What is worse 

 is, that he is either so thick-skinned or stupid — it is hard 

 to say which — that it is next door to impossible to offend 

 him. For instance, Tom Somerville was having a big field- 

 day in that large covert of his called Coombe Wood, when, 

 at the end of one of the best beats, one of his guests, a 

 swell from town, in one of the guard regiments, rushed up 

 to him, almost with tears in his eyes, with : " I say, old fel- 

 low, for Heaven's sake, ^o do something with that awful 



