10 " HOUNDS, GENTLEMEN, PLEASE ! " 



matter either. How many selected bitches have 

 proved barren? How many whelps have succumbed 

 before they even reached puppyhood ? How many of 

 us who hunt ever tried to get a litter through an 

 attack of yellows, or other ailments of whelphood? 

 Not to speak of the unceasing attention and nursing 

 that distemper itself surely brings — that fell disease 

 which invariably carries off the best. 



Then how many of the " bruisers " who ride so 

 jealously close to hounds have any idea of the 

 difficulties about quarters ; the walks for the puppies, 

 which we who live in the country well know are 

 yearly becoming harder to obtain in times when the 

 very members of the hunt seem to fight shy of walk- 

 ing a puppy, though they do not suggest how else 

 the strength of the pack is to be maintained, nor, I 

 notice, do they volunteer subscriptions to procure 

 valuable drafts? Who knows what bitter disappoint- 

 ments are in store for the M.F.H. when these puppies 

 do come in from quarters? Can this crooked, fiat- 

 sided object, with no more bone than an Italian 

 greyhound, be the progeny of his matchless "Name- 

 less," by the great Lord Blankshire's "Nonsuch," 

 whom she visited after as much negotiation and 

 interest as would be required to get a boy into one 

 of His Majesty's own regiments of Guards ? 



Then there is the drafting for shapes of this or 

 that youngster, and the further drafting when 

 cubbing has begun and irreclaimable vice appears. 

 How little the keenest of us ever think of all the 

 troubles of that training period with the pack, and 

 all they have to go through. The rounding, the 



