i66 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



garments in which I was riding to my train happened to 

 be my only available riding kit (having done recent duty 

 upon the Rocky Mountains). But, like gallant and generous 

 comrades, the loth came to the front with dry, and, I 

 protest, most becoming clothes in which I might take 

 saddle in the morning. And these (I am bound to add 

 by way of completing my tale) I returned as I took steamer 

 next night, duly plastered, to mark appreciation and grati- 

 tude, with the mud of another Irish county. 



In what county and with what hounds I had that final 

 exhilarating ride I shall, for reasons that belong to others 

 rather than to myself, refrain from telling. Suffice it to 

 say (and this only, as I have supposed before, because you 

 yourself may one day be serving your novitiate, travelling 

 and hunting in Ireland), that at twelve o'clock that night 

 I was still driving about the lanes on an outside car seeking 

 my dinner, and that about 8 A.M. we were galloping knee 

 to knee across some of the most beautiful ground in the 

 world — all stiffness gone and all care forgotten. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



THE EARLIEST CUT 



Let Wednesday, November 2, 1892 — a first Pytchley 

 Wednesday — be our opening day, the earliest cut into our 

 winter dish, the first dip into our year's life. The glory, 

 the fun, the excitement of a new season are all before us. 

 Would that we could stop the clock, make sun and moon 

 and time — aye, and wear and tear — stand still, and remain 

 as we are now, on the brink of daily gamble for delights 

 of which we know well the worth, and of which the cost 

 need seldom be a sore heart or a rent purse. Two months 

 hence, and half of you will only just be girding your loins. 

 Two months more, and we shall be beginning to wonder 

 what we are to do with ourselves for eight more. Moral- 

 ising is not my forte. But at least I can be practical in 

 advising others on an old text. Don't, pray don't let a 

 frosty Christmas come upon you and find you moaning : 



