I feel a very natural emotion on commenting on the sublime specimen of the Red-King, the ultimate hope of every keen collector, which is portrayed on the opposite page. Observed outside “The Goose and Gridiron,” in Slogsby-under-Hill, this noble creature deprived both my companion (an ex-local champion) and myself of speech for three minutes.
Had he been carrying a ladder (the ne-plus-ultra of Beaverhood) we had never recovered from the glory of the revelation.
Red-Kings score “Game, set, match.” A Red-King on a green bicycle, carrying a lanthorn (or lantern), scores do. do. “Local Championship.” A Red-King on a green bicycle carrying a ladder (poor old Pelion!) has never, alas! been reported up to the present.
There are dreams of scoring a Red-King, complete with fitments, on a High Bicycle ... all things are possible, even a ravishment such as that.
S.
IS A SANTA-BEAVER.
These are usually scored, though your conscientious expert demurs at so doing, as it has been held—and the view is well supported by players of repute—that they are strictly-speaking Double-Faults, the adornment being temporary.
The genuine Santa-King-Beaver, complete with reindeer, sleigh and business with chimney, has never, I believe, been scored.