40 SPORTS AND ANECDOTES. 



the devil they put it, and why they were not quite 

 drunk, I never could make out." 



In the days I have been speaking of almost every- 

 body, excepting the hunting parson he was not 

 quite fast enough for that came down to dinner in 

 his red coat ; I may say everybody did who wore a 

 red coat out hunting, and was in the kind of society 

 that entitled him to wear one at all. The Melton 

 swells all did, and very well it used to look, I used 

 to think. 



It so happened that one of the swells thought he 

 would set the fashion of not coming to dinner in 

 his ; he, however, got chaffed a good deal for trying 

 to do away with the old custom, which his other 

 friends thought a good one. He was a great dandy, 

 and had a more than usually large pair of black 

 whiskers, upon which he greatly prided himself. After 

 dinner one evening the subject of red coats came 

 up, and he was laying down the law a good deal, 

 he got a little angry, and turning to one of the red- 

 coated ones he said, " I wonder that you, above all 

 others, should uphold and practise such a barbarous 

 system, for I call it nothing else." All passed off 

 at the time, for they all saw that he was a bit riled, 

 and as they did not wish to see his monkey up more 



