THE MASTER 35 



must now transport him to a worse scene — a hunt dinner at a 

 country inn — " time being called," as Nimrod says in the 

 Quarterly — "say a quarter to six — nearly our great-grand- 

 father's supper-hour," sundry boors in boots, and sundry boots 

 in shoes, are seen wending their ways in charge of sundry 

 buckets of soup, roasts and boils, sirloins, saddles, rounds, 

 geese, sucking pig, a haunch of venison, game, tarts, celery, 

 &c. By the time the odd quarter of an hour has elapsed they 

 have got them set square on the table, and all having cooled 

 alike, " the Master," who sometimes plays the double part of 

 " host " and " cock guest," leads the way from the travellers' 

 room, where the company have been deposited in the enjoy- 

 ment of damp great coats and stale smoke, followed by all the 

 " train band bold," who forthwith commence a desperate 

 onslaught on the wittles. 



But our humane disposition shrinks from describing the 

 horrors of the evening — the hot wine and cold soup — the 

 fatless venison and the gravy-congealed mutton. Taking old 

 Cottonwool's for the alternative, we may truly say " the last 

 state of this Master is worse than the first." Wool's had the 

 redeeming quality of women — here it is all men. Instead of 

 first a foxhunter, then a lump of Cottonwool, &c., it is fox- 

 hunter and " preterea nihil." The only variety is here and 

 there a stranger, or man in morning's black coat dotted in 

 among the orange vermilion ones of the hunt. A wretched 

 old hack song, sung by a man with a spavin'd voice and a 

 desperate running at the nose, is all we have in lieu of the 

 vigorous but not unpleasant playing of the Miss Cottonwools. 

 But we are getting in advance of the evening ; for though we 

 spared the dinner we must have the speech. " Brief let it be," 

 as old Hamlet — not the jeweller — but the ghost of that name 

 said. Yarn spinning is only for harehunters. The best speech 

 we ever read, was one of the late Lord Kintore's, delivered on 

 the presentation of a piece of plate. A "Ciceronian Master" 



