114 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



The " Miscellaneous " referred to above includes an 

 immense number of small matters which would aggre- 

 gate to about ;^5o a year. The two chief elements of 

 this were the puppy show luncheon to the whole 

 Hunt, costing about ;^20, and the presents to success- 

 ful walkers, coming to another ^15. The remaining 

 ^15 must be assigned to such necessary expenses as 

 postage, stationery and advertising, tips to the hunts- 

 men to whose kennels bitches are sent, beef and other 

 good cheer for the staff at Christmas, and so forth. 

 I have said nothing of the price of draft hounds, for 

 personally I bought only a couple or two during my 

 first year and no more, always preferring to breed my 

 own. 



It will thus be clear that the repairs and miscellaneous 

 together amounted in my case to about ^^90 per annum, 

 and that may be taken as a fair average for a pack 

 of that size. 



Of puppy shows, as also of one or two other necessary 

 items of expense, I will speak later, but the foregoing 

 make up the whole ordinary expenditure of a country 

 pack, apart from earth-stopping and poultry claims, 

 which are dealt with on a later page. It may be a 

 convenience to the reader if I tabulate these various 

 expenses, some analysis of which has been attempted 

 in this chapter, and if against this total of ;^2iio 15s. (to 

 be increased by two other not inconsiderable expenses) 

 we set the usual subscription given to the Master of a 

 provincial pack as ;^i2oo or ;^i400, it will be seen that 

 I was justified in remarking at the outset that he must 

 take up his burden prepared to dip into his own pocket. 



