“Gentlemen and Ladies! Oi beg to propose that we drink this toast up standin’ with all the honours!—Featherbedfordshire fire!” upon which there was a great outburst of applause, mingled with demands for wine, and requests from the ladies, that the gentlemen would be good enough to take their chairs off their dresses, or move a little to one side, so that they might have room to stand up; Crinoline, we should observe, being very abundant with many of them. A tremendous discharge of popularity then ensued, the cheers being led by Imperial John, much to the little Major’s chagrin, who wondered how he could ever have sat down without calling for them. Now, the Earl, we should observe, had not risen in the best of moods that morning, having had a disagreeable dream, in which he saw old Binks riding his favourite horse Valiant, Mazeppa fashion, making a drag of his statue of the Greek slave, enveloped in an anise-seeded bathing-gown; a vexation that had been further increased when he arose, by the receipt of a letter from his “good-natured friend” in London, telling him how old Binks had been boasting at Boodle’s that he was within an ace of an Earldom, and now to be clumsily palavered by Yammerton was more than he could bear. He didn’t want to be praised for anything but his sporting propensities, and Imperial John knew how to do it. Having, however, a good dash of satire in his composition, when the applause and the Crinoline had subsided, he arose as if highly delighted, and assured them that if anything could enhance the pleasure of that meeting, it was to have his health proposed by such a sportsman as Major Yammerton, a gentleman who he believed had kept harriers five-and-thirty years, a feat he believed altogether unequalled in the annals of sporting—(laughter and applause)—during which the little Major felt sure he was going to conclude by proposing his health with all the honours, instead of which, however, his lordship branched off to his own department of sport, urging them to preserve foxes most scrupulously, never to mind a little poultry damage, for Mr. Boggledike would put all that right, never to let the odious word Strychnine be heard in the country, and concluded by proposing a bumper to their next merry meeting, which was the usual termination of the proceedings. The party then rose, chairs fell out of line, and flying crumpled napkins completed the confusion of the scene. CHAPTER XII. THE MORNING FOX.—THE AFTERNOON FOX. 097m _Original Size_