THE PRACTICE OF DEER-STALKING 133 



stalking. Interesting some of them are, no doubt, 

 and their discussion may properly and pleasantly form 

 a feature in the chat of the smoking-room ; but solemn 

 admonitions as to what is best to eat for breakfast 

 or to take out for lunch, appear to be somewhat 

 unnecessary, as is also a lecture on early rising ; a 

 description of the number and kind of pockets 

 your tailor should put into your shooting-jacket, a 

 disquisition on the respective merits of boots or 

 brogues, and on the different kinds of * tackets ' 

 which may be applied to their soles all these seem 

 to be out of place, and indeed ridiculous, in such 

 a treatise as this purports to be. 



Eating and drinking is a matter between the man 

 and his digestion. No other person has any right to 

 interfere. What suits one stomach does not suit 

 another. Thus, personally I am a very bad hand at 

 breakfast, and when that breakfast is served at an 

 early hour am no hand at all at it. But on the hill 

 I used to get ravenous at lunch, and the thin biscuit 

 which suited some of my friends would not have 

 done for me. These used, of course, to eat a hearty 

 breakfast, but they were no harder on the hill than I 

 was, nor less knocked up after an exceptionally long 

 day. 



Then again, as regards clothes. One often reads 



