To this impression Lord Benthorpe added by asking, with apparent interest, whether or not the work of the parish had recently afforded matter for serious comment. Mrs Warner replied that nothing of moment could she recall since the affair in which her host, in his capacity of Justice, had so amply seconded her efforts to correct the disorders of a wandering circus recently visiting the village. It cannot be denied that Lord Benthorpe was pleased with the recollection; a merited content overspread his features as Mrs Warner went on to describe the vigour with which the lord of the manor had lent his influence to discountenance, the magistrate his power to punish, a case of gross cruelty to animals which had taken place in this show. It seems that a tiger having, in some irrational fit, attached itself to the trunk of the sole elephant the manager could boast, was lashed off again by the application of a horsewhip, the weals caused by which were the more difficult to prove in court, both from the inconvenience of bringing the victim before the bench, and from the peculiar parallel stripes already provided by nature upon the poor creature’s hide. When this relation was accomplished, Mrs Warner had the tact to add that his lordship’s experience in the East (an experience which she coupled with the name of Pútti-Ghâl) had luckily given him an ample knowledge of tigers. He it was, she informed Mr Burden, who had pointed out that in all such cases the truer Christianity of our Indian fellow-subjects, had long learnt to drag off the infuriated feline by a steady pull upon its tail. Lord Benthorpe asserted in reply that so long as he had the confidence of His Majesty, and was honoured by him with a Commission of the Peace, there was nothing he would more rigorously pursue than the inhumanity of the lower classes towards dumb animals; and, having so expressed himself, he once more relaxed the momentary firmness of his lips, and left to them their more usual expression of open amiability. At this moment appeared, with some ceremony, a leg of mutton loading a dish of pure silver, whereon the presence of little runnels leading to one united depression for the retention of the gravy, marked the practical combined with the luxurious. The conversation having turned upon tigers, perhaps the most interesting of the animal creation, and Lord Benthorpe’s experience in the East having been, as was public knowledge, manifold, it is little wonder if he occupied the remainder of the meal in a somewhat lengthy description of his adventures in the pursuit of this game; for, though no class of the community knows better when to be silent, neither is any better fitted for sustaining a monologue than that which the host of the evening had adorned.