XXX 

 THE HUNT DINNER 



THE HUNTSMAN'S TOAST "TO FOX-HUNTING IN GENERAL" 

 THE DOCTOR TELLS A STORY 



,UST a few congenial spirits," says our 

 Master, on the way home from covert ; 

 " no formality." 



Hunting men at dinner, like hounds when 

 the pace is fastest, give little or no tongue. But by the 

 time cigars and cigarettes are passed they become such a 

 set of babblers as would " draft " the lot of them without 

 more ado. Over and over again they discuss the run of 

 the day, straight, crossways, and then "catacorner," as the 

 farmers say they cultivate their corn. Like the corn, that 

 grows taller and broader for each cultivation, so grow the 

 fences higher and the brook wider at least a foot at every 

 telling. The brook is no longer a creek, but a canal, to 

 those who have tasted it, a river to those who forded it. 

 Each hunter's vices have become trivial faults, his faults 

 mere eccentricities which only amuse and delight. His 

 mistakes we gladly take upon ourselves, where, in all prob- 

 ability, they belong. So the babblers babble on till finally 

 there is a stir at the Master's end of the table. 



341 



