Sponge with the brush, and the usual
solemnities being observed, the sherry flasks were produced and drained,
the biscuits munched, and, amidst the smoke of cigars, the ring broke up in
great good-will.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Writing A Run
[Illustration: letter T]
The first fumes of excitement over, after a run with a kill, the field
begin to take things more coolly and veraciously, and ere long some of them
begin to pick holes in the affair. The men of the hunt run it up, while
those of the next hunt run it down. Added to this there are generally some
cavilling, captious fellows in every field who extol a run to the master's
face, and abuse it behind his back. So it was on the present occasion. The
men of the hunt--Charley Slapp, Lumpleg, Guano, Crane, Washball, and
others--lauded and magnified it into something magnificent; while Fossick,
Fyle, Wake, Blossomnose, and others of the 'Flat Hat Hunt,' pronounced it a
niceish thing--a pretty burst; and Mr. Vosper, who had hunted for
five-and-twenty seasons without ever subscribing one farthing to hounds,
always declaring that each season was 'his last,' or that he was going to
confine himself entirely to some other pack, said it was nothing to make a
row about, that he had seen fifty better things with the Tinglebury
harriers, and never a word said.
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