PSEUDONYMOUS FOOT BEAGLES

In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to describe what immense pleasure can be derived by pedestrians with a pack of small hounds that have been improved and brought to a high pitch of perfection by judicious management, and knowledge gained by experience. Let me now ask my readers to look at the other side of the picture, and allow me to show, by an imaginary description, how easily an established and good little pack may be broken up, and a number of people's pleasure be spoilt, by an inexperienced and vain fool taking upon himself duties which he does not understand, and for which Nature never intended him. I

cannot conceive that any man could possibly try to "fit the cap on," but as "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of," I feel constrained to point out that the following pages should be read cum grano salis, and as only intended to point a moral-" Pass the salt, please."

"It is a far cry to Loch Awe," and so it is to that delightful county of tin and pilchards, whose varied scenery and natural attractions are well-nigh unrivalled.

Let us assume that in this far west portion of bonnie England a delightful little pack of genuine foot beagles had been established for many a year. Suddenly, by some mysterious influence of Nature, a new Master of this pack has been projected into prominence—we will, for conciseness' sake, suppose that his elevation to such a giddy sphere of influence was due to feminine caprice. Again, let us imagine that, previous to his promotion by woman's

whim, he was also a Master-of caligraphy— and now, as then, he claims that nihil quod tetigit non ornavit.

Having, like the mushroom, suddenly and unexpectedly come to the surface, the soaring ambition of this masterful Master (he being a "Roturier," with the usual mauvais gout of his class) looked upon foot beagles with contempt, notwithstanding the fact that for years before he "rose in the firmament" they had satisfied and given unmitigated pleasure to numbers of his betters (socially and mentally) of both sexes, who were unable to afford the luxury of a horse to ride. Wretched foot beagles were not good enough for him; he could afford horses, or at least the partner of his joys-who had been attracted by his kilt and caligraphy-could ; and had he not, since his elevation, been practising riding a "Gee (privately), so that he could really stick on a quiet horse if it went peacefully and smoothly,

and no evil-disposed person stuffed the back of his saddle with springs? Besides, of course, when he went a-hunting, someone would always catch the Master's horse when he kicked the animal over a fence before him; so why should he not blossom forth into a Master of something bigger and grander than those miserable little hounds which, poor devils, with a limited supply of the almighty dollar, ran after on foot? Ah! the pathos of it. We must now suppose that his-I mean his wife's-almighty dollars carried the day, and to gratify the ultra-snobbishness of one person who had been dragged up from his proper level to a position for which he was eminently unfitted—an individual, furthermore, who hardly knew one end of a hound from the other-the decree went forth, and a charming little pack was ruthlessly broken up and converted into a nondescript lot, which were neither harriers nor beagles, though by