THE MASTER 5 



they prize him, for were they to lose him we really don't know 

 where to recommend them another. 



Having sent for our maid of all work to try the foregoing 

 upon her, we observed that she neither smiled nor even relaxed 

 a muscle of her rather pretty countenance, till we repeated the 

 word " sugar," and, when we had concluded, she observed, 

 with her usual candid diffidence, that she did not understand 

 what all these qualities had to do with the " red coats," as she 

 calls them, conceiving, we rather suspect, that foxhunters are a 

 sort of off-shoots of soldiers. 



As we may have other readers in a similar predicament to 

 Susannah, we will be our own " Boswell," and treat them to a 

 running commentary on the obscure portions of our text. This 

 we may do in a rambling sort of way, without reference to the 

 order in which they now stand. 



A Member of Parliament is generally supposed to have a 

 ticklish up-hill sort of game to play, but it is nothing compared 

 to that of a Master of Foxhounds. The Member has merely to 

 bamboozle people once in six or seven years out of something 

 that really is hardl}' worth giving or receiving, and to change 

 his coat at short notice, but the Master of the Hounds 

 has to keep his soft solder pot boiling all the year round 

 healing real or imaginary wounds, trying to make farmers 

 believe something very much like " black being white," 

 coaxing them into a credence that it benefits wheat and 

 sown grass to ride over them, that foxes never touch lambs, 

 and abhor poultry, that it benefits hedges for horses to 

 dance hornpipes upon them, with many other similar and 

 singularly curious articles of belief. 



So much for the M.f . quality. 



Time ! which assuredly has begun to go quicker since 

 railways were introduced, has even carried the gastronomic 

 feats of " Dando " into the oblivion of all forgetfulness ; yet 

 let it not be said — Dando, though dead, yet lives in the 



