Loud chorus of subalterns: "No!"
"All right, then, that settles your fate, and you shall!" and I lit a cigar preliminary to starting the yarn.
"Well do I remember the episode. It was a cut-throat country that we had to ride over. Many of my soldier comrades, brave and true, fell that day thickly around me—but as they all got up again, it did not really so much matter."
Having deftly dodged a sofa-cushion shied at my head by way of a gentle hint to "get forrard," I dropped from airy heights to the sober realms of fact, and proceeded to tell my plain unvarnished tale.
"After hunting for ten years with a pack belonging to a Cavalry regiment—let us call it the 'Heavyshot Drag'—the Fates (and Taylor & Co.) removed me into a far country, and but for the kindness of some members of the hunt, who often asked me up and gave me a mount, I should have known the Heavyshot no more, as it was too far to bring any of my own select stud—consisting of a musical one, with three legs and a swinger, a bolter with a blind eye, and a 13.2 pony!—up for the gallop. And what jolly gallops they always were, too!
"One day I got a wire from my excellent friend Major Laughton, who was then Master of the Heavyshot, 'Come up, Friday. Lunch mess. Hounds meet Pickles Common.' To which, in the degenerate language of the times, I wired reply, 'You bet,' and one P.M. on the day named found my breeched and booted legs beneath the mahogany of the hospitable mess room.
"Major Laughton, in greeting me, said, 'So sorry, my dear boy, I can't give you my second horse, as he's all wrong to-day—a severe "pain under the pinafore" has floored him. But I've got you a gee from—well, never mind where from, I know he can jump.' And with these words the conversation dropped. As to where my mount came from—well, it was no concern of mine, was it? I thought I noticed a slight deflection of the gallant Major's left eyelid when he was speaking, but that, after all, might have been my fancy.
"After putting in some strong work over the luncheon course, we lit cigars, and in a few minutes both horses and hounds appeared on the parade ground. My horse with the mysterious origin was a good-looking bay, who carried his head in the 'cocky' fashion beloved of riding-masters, and proved a very pleasant hack. We jogged along and soon reached the meet.
"The usual scene of eagerness and excitement, hounds supplying the latter element, whilst the superior animal, man, jostled his fellows consumedly, in his natural desire to 'get off the mark' as soon as decency and the Master permitted. The last-named held forth vigorously to us, as with a 'Tow-yow-yow!' hounds dashed across the first field, and jumped, scrambled, or squeezed through the first fence.
"'Let 'em get over before you start, bless you all! Come back there, you man on the grey! What the saintly St Ursula are you doing? All right, now you can go, and be past-participled to you all!'