250 THE HUNTING FIELD 



are fresh and new ; finery, above all things, should 

 be good, for much of its popularity depends upon its 

 newness, and scarlet evening coats are no exception 

 to the rule. What can look nastier than a greasy 

 annual, a keepsake, or book of beauty, for instance, 

 or a frowsey faded piece of worsted-worked finery? 

 Nothing but a shapeless, makeless, old-fashioned red 

 rag dancing about. Yet what things we have seen, 

 to be sure ! and what men in them ! Tall, gaunt, 

 spectral-looking fellows, with faces the very antipodes 

 of their coats, and little roundabout, teetotum, beer- 

 barrel-looking things, that could never by any 

 possibility sit on a horse. These people have coats 

 that they got when "they hunted," as they call it, 

 some twenty years ago perhaps, and having them, 

 they think it right to air them every now and then, 

 that is to say, whenever they can get an opportunity, 

 at hunt or fancy balls, at which latter place, indeed, 

 hunt coats are valuable, as saving many a worthy 

 man from being choked in uniform. But if a man 

 hopes to kill a girl — which, after all, we suppose is 

 the real object of appearing in scarlet — let him 

 ascertain before he commits himself, that there are 

 no military going, else his plain coat will have a very 

 denuded, stripped-of-its-lace appearance by the side 

 of the glittering uniforms of his competitors. Hunt 

 coats are best at hunt balls. 



Shabbyhounde's coat has not come to the cover 

 before it was due. It has long lost all the freshness 

 of newness, while sundry stains on the back and left 

 shoulder give indications of lamp droppings, or wax 

 swealings, obtained in the fantastic toe service. Still 

 it is not a badly cut coat, though the collar rather 

 puts the back to the blush, having only superseded 

 a black velvet one with a gold embroidered fox on 

 each side, it shows rather too new for the rest. Of 

 course Shabbyhounde sports an anonymous button, 

 one we should think made entirely out of his own 



