114 CHASING AND RACING 



Blossom's. I had a to-do to restrain my beauties 

 from giving my guests a welcome of a very different 

 kind, for they, the hounds, evidently imagined that a 

 vigorous offensive was being launched against the 

 person of their master. 



And so I triumphed, but for a moment it was touch 

 and go. Had Landsman made an aggressive spring, 

 there is no saying what my fate might have been. It 

 does not bear thinking of. Against my will I have 

 had at times nasty nightmares, induced by a sub- 

 conscious realization of my peril, and have awakened 

 in a cold sweat. As it was, I suffered no injury what- 

 ever — which is more than can be said of my boiled 

 shirt and dinner jacket. I established my contention 

 and pocketed a fiver, though that magnificent sum could 

 hardly be termed " easy m.oney." 



I once wrote some verses for the purpose of 

 recitation, describing how a postman of the moors had 

 been hunted by Lord Wolverton's bloodhounds. 



He had helped the huntsmen to get the stag out of 

 the river, and held it whilst the knife did its deadly 

 work. Subsequently the hounds, a very wild and 

 irresponsible lot, ran riot, and getting on the line of 

 the unfortunate letter-carrier, gave him a time of acute 

 terror. In fact, he only just saved his skin by shin- 

 ning up a solitary but friendly tree. The final lines 

 of the piece ran — 



I lay in the fork the livelong night 



And when they found me my hair was white, 



So now you know all about it ! 



