CHRISTiMASSIXG 53 



a tale that makes the very porters chuckle and grin — to 

 have them arriving, by twos, at the station that your 

 neighbours and friends most affect. I assure you that 

 every parcel office in the Midlands is now choked with 

 them ! In the first instance I saw, of twin head-pieces 

 thus awaiting delivery, they were at once labelled, not 

 inappropriately, by a comrade of the future wearer's, 

 "With care. This side up." 



CHAPTER VIII 



CHRISTiMASSIXG 



Our " Christmassing " of 1891 was over with Sunday. 

 On Monday there lingered only its memory, the conse- 

 quences, and a very pronounced bone in the ground. 

 The Grafton hunted and found foxes. For my part — 

 inasmuch as my worthy editor by no means considers 

 himself bound, as in the case of an M.F.H., at once to 

 replace all horses broken down in his service — I have 

 long outgrown the extravagant rashness of attempting 

 to ride to hounds when the ground is only half thawed. 

 To look at hounds going away in the distance doesn't 

 amuse me, and it is, besides, about as practicable as 

 going on, after your justifiable hour, to see a last covert 

 drawn " on the chance of their running your way." Of 

 course on such occasions they never do run your way, 

 and equally of course you invariably go off with them, 

 to the demolition of every premeditated arrangement on 

 your part. Even this result has its wholesome moral, 

 . which is, I suppose, that as long as it be given to you 

 j to hunt at all, it is your bounden duty to make no other 

 engagement or plan in life which will in any degree 

 interfere with your getting all you possibly can out of 

 every horse in your stable. Verbitm sap. 



Thus on Monday I contented myself with long road- 



l exercise, keeping studiously aloof from the vicinity of 



\ hounds. And on Tuesday they kept altogether aloof 



from me and my neighbourhood, while warm showers 



