390 



THE BEST OF THE FUN 



about this inaccessible retreat as is good for you to 

 know. 



If the final decade of the nineteenth century does not 

 produce a generation of Spartan mothers, then I for one 

 will give up all faith in the virtue of training. The fin 

 de Steele young man is " not in it " with either matron or 

 virgin of the present day when it comes to taking a heavy 

 fall, getting up with a smiling face, and even (thanks to 

 the tailors and the popular uproar) girding up their loins, 

 and running over grass, stubble, or plough. They record 

 their tosses at the rate of two or three a week with as 

 much equanimity as if they were reckoning the pairs of 

 gloves they have thrown away. To-day, believe me, they 

 relieved the monotony of each grassy field by trotting 

 merrily over it — one or other, or a pair of them — in pur- 

 suit of flying horses, and scarcely gasped when thanking 

 gracefully the happy youth to whose lot it had fallen to 

 bring back their steeds. One promising member of our 

 heavy - weight division achieved gratitude no less than 

 three times, while four fair ladies in a row were com- 

 paring notes as to their' respective tumbles. At least a 

 dozen were down during the morning — the blind ditches 

 chiefly to blame — and the worst result, I am glad to say, 

 was only the necessity, in one or two cases, of having to 

 carry in hand the Champion and Wilton stirrup as they 

 ran. The boys fell of course, too, a few. But the dis- 

 parity of numbers was more in proportion to the census 

 of the population than in accordance with the ratio of the 

 hunting-field. 



CHAPTER LXII 



A SCENT IN PRACTICE AND IN THEORY 



Apropos of the jolly Eton boys, whose only occupation of 

 late has been to keep up the memory of the flood, I have 

 been told a little instance to prove that some of them, at 

 least, are well up-to-date in the art of looking after them- 

 selves. The youngster in question, having succeeded by 

 one o'clock in galloping his mother's pony to a stand- 

 still, was, at this critical juncture, fortunate enough to 



