CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 237 



hunting ones when they got shabby, and a shabby dog he 

 must have been who started the idea. 



Ahhough we fully agree in the words of the old song, that 

 there's 



" Naught like boots and leather breeches," 



we do not carry our admiration for hunting accoutrements 

 quite so high as to insist upon there being nothing like scarlet 

 for dining in. Indeed, we don't like it. It makes too much 

 of a business of the thing, added to which we often see the 

 greatest cocktails in a morning the most tenacious of appearing 

 in it in an evening. 



If, however, men with their hair stiffly curled, and pumps on 

 their feet, will put themselves into scarlet for dinners and 

 balls, let us beg of them to get new coats occasionally. Most 

 things look well when the}- are fresh and new ; finery, above 

 all things, should be good, for much of its popularity depends 

 upon its newness, and scarlet evening coats are no exception 

 to the rule. What can look nastier than a greasy annual, a 

 keepsake, or book of beauty, for instance, or a frowsy faded 

 piece of worsted-worked finery ? Nothing but a shapeless, 

 makeless, old-fashioned red rag dancing about. Yet what 

 things we have seen, to be sure ! and what men in them ! 

 Tall, gaunt, spectral-looking fellows, with faces the very 

 antipodes of their coats, and little roundabout, teetotum, 

 beer-barrel-looking things, that could never by any possibility 

 sit on a horse. These people have coats that they got when 

 " they hunted," as they call it, some twenty years ago perhaps, 

 and having them, they think it right to air them every now and 

 then, that is to say, whenever they can get an opportunit}-, at 

 hunt or fancy balls, at which latter place, indeed, hunt coats 

 are valuable, as saving many a worthy man from being choked 

 in uniform. But if a man hopes to kill a girl — which, after all, 

 we suppose is the real object of appearing in scarlet — let him 

 ascertain before he commits himself, that there are no military 



