91. THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD. 



glades of the Forest of Versailles, as a long winding 

 horn round Tom Firr's body would be here. The ex- 

 ceptional good breeding of his race renders every one of 

 his countrymen nimble and graceful beyond all others in 

 the art of doffing the hat. But the point now so difficult 

 of acquirement was to heep it on. Well-fitting hats — 

 hats too big — hats too little — all seemed possessed with 

 the same cruel objection to remaining in their proper 

 position. When he jumped, they flew. When he fell, 

 they broke away. He took his falls with the non- 

 chalance pertaining to a courage that would not be 

 daunted and a resolution that never failed. If the hat 

 and he chanced to foil on the same side of the fence, 

 they rejoined forces, and went on in the fray together. 

 But he was far too good and determined a sportsman to 

 throw away a run for the sake of saving a hat. Vestigia 

 nulla retrorsum was his motto — which, for information 

 of a certain hunt servant who w\aa for the moment 

 so sorely hurt by my thoughtless and opprobrious 

 epithet of locum tenens,''' may be translated as signifying 

 " Look back for another hat " — and so he sailed onwards 

 in the first flight of many a good gallop, hatless, brave, 

 and unabashed. In fiict, the possession or not of his hat 

 by M. Elysees began to be regarded as more or less the 

 criterion of the merits, and especially of the pace, of a 

 run. It was even suggested that a scale should be 

 established, and the standard of the gallop denoted by 



* Within a week of the chance emphiyment, and the subsequent funny 

 misconstruction of the term, Mr. Punch was supplied from the Vale of 

 Belvoir with material for a cut conveying the mistake in another form. 



