A SMOKING-ROOM PALAVER 329 



"Barbed wire, awful crowds, fields that give no hounds 

 a chance, wages up to treble what they were forty 

 years ago, artificial manures. South African million- 

 aires, shooting syndicates of plutocrats, mobs of 

 horse-dealers who turn out seven or eight horses 

 daily and give a ' fiver ' to the Hunt — such are some 

 of the advantages I have seen and heard of ; and I 

 think we could do without many more ! You talk 

 about the cheeriness and great sociability of modern 

 times out hunting, of the number of ladies who hunt, 

 &c., &c., but looking at the matter purely from a 

 hunting point of view, remember this — that hounds 

 would do better if there ivere no field at all, and I 

 believe every pack would be considerably improved 

 if they could go out several times in the season un- 

 attended, except by the Hunt establishment, and find 

 and hunt their fox, when I'd engage they'd kill him 

 pretty often and seldom would have their heads up." 



" Oh, I know what you'd like ! " said young Up-to- 

 date. " Ten or a dozen out, all told, all of the severe 

 order of sportsmen, hack on to the meet and arrive 

 half an hour too soon, then sit round like a lot of old 

 owls looking at the hounds, pretending you know 

 them all, and talking of this one and that, their 

 fathers and mothers, and great-grandmothers. Surely 

 it's a lot jollier and more sociable to go out and meet 

 a host of nice people with squadrons of pretty girls 

 to talk to the heaps of Johnnies to chaff and tell 

 you all the last good stories ? " 



" I think I like to meet plenty of my fellow-creatures 

 out hunting, too," I meekly replied. "And also like 

 ladies to talk to and to look at if they are pretty ; 



