CHKISTMAS ON THE VELDT 



FEW days before the 

 Christmas of 190-, the 

 thermometer registered 

 something like 90 de- 

 grees in the shade, 

 and there was at least 

 one man of our " stag 

 party " of four whose 

 heart was in the beauti- 

 ful West Country of Old 

 England, where, as a 

 guest at a certain 

 ancient manor house situate among the tors and valleys 

 of Exmoor, he had spent the preceding Yuletide. 



" Hulloa, you chaps, what's up ? You all look as 

 miserable as so many lugged hares," was the respectful 

 salutation of an irresponsible, devil-may-care youngster, 

 known amongst his intimate friends as " Madcap Hood," 

 who galloped up before the stoef of the bungalow 

 whereon we were seated bored to death with the 

 heat, and, incidentally. Jack Pearson's wonderful yarns 

 of sport and adventure by land and flood — which 

 years before we had heard, marked, learned, but not 

 altogether digested — and smoking the blackest of black 

 " Trichys," the latter almost powerful enough to 



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