PETER PIGSKIN 161 



ing in gaiters. All who have tried it will admit it is 

 a most expensive amusement. He turned out a pair 

 of old Blazington boots, which were very soon ac- 

 corded the honour of ramming through all the big 

 places first. 



Thus things went on for many years ; young Peters 

 sprung up, resembling the portrait we drew of our 

 hero on the Duke of Blazington's leaders, while Peter 

 himself, instead of expanding into the red cabbage- 

 looking figure of his father, receded into the little wiry 

 old man now entering the hunting field. 



We should state, that Peter is now what the world 

 calls a gentleman — a gentleman in the idle accepta- 

 tion of the term, meaning a man with nothing to do, 

 nothing to do except hunt. Shortly after the railway 

 mania broke out, the since celebrated Jeames de la 

 Pluce, Esq. attended by his pugilistic wally, Fitz- 

 warren, and a man in livery, drove up in a dashing 

 chariot and four to the Fox and Hounds, and politely 

 intimated to Peter that he was going to draw a line 

 of railway slap through his kitchen and back offices. 

 Jeames, who is quite the man of manners, accom- 

 panied the intimation with a hint that the company 

 "would be appy to pay through the nose for the 

 ecomodetion." A bait so fairly thrown out was not 

 likely to be lost on a man like Peter, and after enter- 

 taining de la Pluce with the best of everything, he 

 stuck the Fox and Hounds into him at three times 

 its worth. Peter expatiated on the loss it would be 

 to him ; Mrs. Pigskin dilated on the laceration of her 

 feelings at leaving it, and de la Pluce swept away 

 their expostulations with sovereigns, those weighty 

 arguments, that settle all accounts between man and 

 man, or woman either. 



Peter now lives at Rosemary Cottage, about three 

 quarters of a mile from Fleecy Hall, where the reader 

 may remember they first met him. Rosemary Cottage 

 was built by a jolly bacchanalian, who having a pre- 



