98 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



Companion" wlio^ on meeting a fellow-spirit at the 

 cover side, inquired when he was drunk last ? To which 

 the other seriously replied that he had left off drinking- ; 

 and, when pressed again as to how long-, ingenuousl}" 

 answered ever since three o'clock that mornino-. This much 

 resembles m j vow ; the next day but one I threw mj 

 leg over a brown mare, which in a sharp thing- of five-and- 

 twenty minutes, went nearly as well as the departed Peter : 

 she had, however, a trick of pricking- her ears and fixing 

 her eye while hounds were running in cover, that to me 

 looked very like vice, and I consequently was reluctantly 

 forced to decline her. On that evening-, too, I bade my 

 friend adieu, returning to town to try a wall-eyed Augur 

 filly, which Harboro' Magna^ Green wrote me word was 

 *^ the very thing forme;" a confident assurance which 

 in my own mind I felt much inclined to doubt. 



By the way, as I hear there is another *^ Blue Peter" 

 about, I must put in a claim to the original title for poor 

 Peter : by which, indeed, he stands registered in the Stud 

 Sooh, for he was as thorough-bred as a Spanish Don or 

 Cheshire Pile. 



