A FIRST RAINY DAY. 525 



dropped in upon the club from far regions as naturally as the 

 early woodcocks speed southward with the first chilly breeze. 

 From Oxford Street to Piccadilly was a skirmishing ground for 

 healthy-looking manhood of a class quite different from that of 

 the pallid townman. You could not turn in to your boot- 

 maker's without stumbling across some old acquaintance on the 

 verge of apoplexy — tugging and purpling to induce a quart of 

 heather-grown calf to enclose itself in a pintpot boot; while the 

 " Snob " smiled deprecatingly, assuring that the lasts were the 

 same and that the "leg would soon fit the boot." Generally it 

 ended in cramp, a howl on the patient's part, and a volley that 

 rattled every shoe on the shelf. Or had you occasion to look in 

 at your tailor's. It was a hundred to one there was Smith, 

 with whom, three nights out of four the winter through, you 

 ride back from hunting, now perched on a wooden horse, and 

 sampling a swallowtail scarlet. Painfully aware was he that 

 the Bond Street trousers were scarcely in keeping — indeed 

 were supremely ridiculous in the multiplied mirrors around 

 him. And he grew as red in the light as if caught in the 

 dark — and felt bound to explain, that, well, he had thought he 

 would try a new shape. The breeches-maker's place of business 

 was a reproduction of the bootmaker's, — only more so, for they 

 are merciless hands that wield the buttonhook. He, too, means 

 to make the man. Altogether, the dandy of the hunting-field 

 has, I imagine, about as good a time as a maiden being fitted 

 for the summer season— and has, moreover, to pay his own bills 

 into the bargain. Verily, there is vanity in foxhunting — and 

 vanity let there be. Tis half the show. We don't all go out 

 to slaughter the fox, nothing else. Who would go hunting if 

 all were morose, and all were in sackcloth — with their sins and 

 their souls on the sleeve of their coat of misery ? 



Northamptonshire is just pecking its way through its shell, 

 next week to emerge in full life and smartest appearance. 



