The Rabbit Battue. 239 



out, and cigar-cases are handed round. I invariably notice that 

 men who are quite unused to cigar-smoking, and who would infi- 

 nitely prefer a yard of clay, are the last to refuse a cigar when it is 

 once offered to them. I presume there is in their ideas something 

 aristocratic in smoking a cigar j and in general what a sad mess 

 they make of it ! Such rolling and wetting, such trouble in 

 lighting ! (Has the reader ever had the pleasure of giving a light 

 from his nice even-smoked cigar to a man who is not used to 

 smoking ? I have often, and I have inwardly wished my perse- 

 cutor somewhere else, as he thrusts his cigar-end into mine, puffs 

 three or four huge volumes of smoke right into my face ; and if he 

 does not altogether extinguish my cigar, is sure to return it to me 

 in such a dilapidated condition that it is hardly worth smoking 

 again.) Such puffing to set the weed well going ! and when it is 

 once alight it generally burns half-way down one side, leaving a 

 long outer crust upon the other. Talk of throwing pearls before 

 swine ! I always shudder when I see a first-rate regalia in 

 such hands. Of course, Mr. Johnson, during a thirty years' attend- 

 ance upon the " swells," as he terms them, has learnt to smoke a 

 cigar as it should be; but it is evident that he does not think 

 smoking improves the shooting, for he significantly remarks, " I 

 like to see the cigars come out. Now I don't care whether you 

 shoot at hares or rabbits." 



The hour of lunch is the jolliest of the day. Old jokes, which we 

 have heard over and over again, but which somehow never appear 

 to become stale -, anecdotes of feats in the^ saddle, or with the gun, 

 which we know by heart, now and then interspersed with a quiet 

 bit of "chaff," passing away the time. And as all are on an equality 

 this day, there is no restraint on the conversation. My lord's 

 doings are canvassed just as candidly as those of his meanest 

 tenants ; and if any one in the neighbourhood should chance 

 to have a blot on his escutcheon, it is now freely commented on : 

 just as freely are the good points in another man's character 

 applauded. That old oak, in the deep quiet of the forest glade, 

 forms a picturesque and English scene in itself ; and if any 



