Captain Mildviay Clerk, 259 



liad united Lini to military life — drew a prize in the 

 matrimonial lottery — bought a house and small property 

 in a well-situated village near the Brixworth kennels — 

 and mounted the white collar of the " P.H." The eccen- 

 tricity which led him to conceal rather than expose his 

 good qualities earned for him a sobriquet by which he 

 became universally known, and by which he will ever be 

 remembered, in spite of its being a libel on his true 

 character. For this title he was indebted to a habit 

 of estimating men and things at a considerably lower 

 value than that at which they had been appraised by 

 the parties themselves. In one respect, however, he 

 greatly differed from his brother '^ crabbists/' namely, 

 that he was not a whit more merciful to things belonging 

 to himself than he was to those of others. 



His wine, for example, than which nobody had better, 

 was dubbed by him ^^ paraffin '^ or ^^ petroleum ;'' — his 

 cook was bound to make those who had been so rash as 

 to accept an invitation to dinner " ill for a week ;'^ — 

 the horse upon which he, probably, had cut down a 

 whole field, was only ^^ an old screw/' — a quick tliirty 

 minutes would be " about as fast as a cripple could kick 

 his wide-awake ;^^ — and it was a fortunate hound which, 

 according to him, possessed any of the qualifications 

 requisite for an efficient member of a pack. 



Possessed of too much amiability to give outward 

 expression to his dislike of another, he would not lose 

 an opportunity of indulging in a sly poke at any one who 

 was not altogether to his fancy. Not being quite in 

 accord with a Huntsman, who was nearly perfection in 

 the eyes of every one else, he got his cut at him one day 

 in the following manner. Taking a non-hunting friend 



s 2 



