22 A Sportsman at Large 



Dads was dead keen on shooting and fishing, but a flutter 

 on the Turf was, in his eyes, an abomination. So, having 

 fined the backsliders all round very stiffly, he stalked out of 

 the court-house and proceeded to enter what he thought to 

 be his trap, when a corpulent Knight of the Pencil rushed up 

 in great excitement. 



" 'Ere, I say, guv'nor," he bawled, " 'old 'ard. You've 

 fined me fifty quid fer the love ov Mike, don't pinch me 

 blinkin' 'orses and trap ! " 



It chanced that the bookie's tits were like Tommy and 

 Pet a bay and a grey respectively. In the dusk of the 

 declining day my respected parent had " fallen for it." 



As a judge, The Dads invariably endeavoured to temper 

 the wind to the shorn lamb. I remember, on one occasion, 

 being in court, when after sentence had been pronounced, 

 a notorious burglar thus addressed him : 



" Thank 'ee, Milord, I can do it on my 'ead, though you 

 'ave give me a pretty stiff stretch ; but, bless yer, I'd raver 

 cop twelve months 'ard from yer Lordship than'alf of it from 

 any other blinkin' bench bounder. Yer does it so damned 

 affable like." 



But it was not always so. One day I was beside him on 

 the seat of the mighty, when a tough old lag (Buckley by 

 name), who was evidently dissatisfied with what had been 

 awarded him, as the consequence of his lawlessness, stooped 

 down in the dock, and before one could say " knife," or the 

 attendant warder could restrain him, had removed his clod- 

 hopper boot, and sent it hurtling at the head of the Majesty 

 of the Law, as represented by my gentle parent. 



The hob-nailed missile passed harmlessly between his 

 head and mine, and found its billet on the wainscotting 

 behind the judicial chair, where it landed with a resounding 

 crash. The learned judge, who was busy recording the 

 sentence, looked up without moving a muscle, murmuring 

 mildly : 



" Buckley, Buckley, I'm surprised at you ! " 



What a nerve, and what a man I 



