A Question of Bits ii 



very ill, and he had given up his day's fun in order to 

 drive Lady Stockbridge over to see her. 



' Too thin, my dear fellow, a very great deal too 

 thin,' Lawford replied. ' If he had been mounted on a 

 steady-going cob, you may depend upon it he would have 

 let his nurse slide. Nurse ! That's a good joke. The 

 ardour of his desire to see his nurse was in proportion 

 to that chesnut mare's kicks. Your straight rider is a 

 fraud ! ' 



' Well, you know, you only rode straight as far as the 

 first fence yesterday, and then you and your mare got as 

 crooked as you could be,' Oakley rejoined, nettled at the 

 sarcasm directed at his friend. 



Conversation in their corner of the drawing-room was 

 checked by the entrance of the subject of their remarks, 

 Chippenham himself, and soon after a move was made 

 downstairs, where for a couple of hours the horse and 

 the hound, together with that sporting little beast who 

 is the occasion for so much sport in others, Eeynard the 

 Fox, were scarcely mentioned. 



With the departure of the ladies men began to talk 

 as they will talk in a hunting country at the table of a 

 M.F.H. Oakley was chaffed about hunting in a green 

 coat when green was not the colour of the hunt, the 

 explanation of which was that he had lately jumped into 

 a very weedy duck-pond, with so thick a layer of vegeta- 

 tion on the surface that, being very short-sighted, and 

 having dropped his glass out of his eye, he had fancied 

 he was landing on to a smooth bit of turf, whereas he 

 was not landing at all. Then the conversation turned 

 on horses that ' looked like jumping.' 



' That bay mare of Lawford's looks like jumping till 

 she gets to the fences,' Oakley remarked. ' Now, how are 



