“Champion knew his work thoroughly; the Master generally did not (but thought he did—I speak from my own experience), and small wonder if Champion was apt to lay down the law to the new Master. He always did well with the bitches and their whelps in the summer, and had hounds fit by October, taking them for road exercise on a bicycle with his boy ‘Gidge’ to whip in. After Christmas, when we hunted three or four days a week, it was no easy job for him to bring out a pack of ten-twelve couple from a kennel of well under twenty couple. Yet we never seemed to have a ‘short pack’ out. Champion knew the country and the run of the hares, and was on good terms with the farmers. He was not a great runner, but always seemed to be there when really wanted. Especially was this the case when hounds crossed the railway line. He was not a man of polished manners; his style being more blunt; and any one who did not know him would think him sulky. And I remember his invariable way of taking an order was with the words, ‘Ooh, ah!’ “I think you would go a long way before finding a better man for the job than George Champion.” Certainly George Champion is not sulky. Blunt he is, but it is his Yorkshire way, and he is always pleasant. Only the other day a little incident occurred at the kennels which illustrates this bluntness. Champion was sitting by his fireside, enjoying a well-earned rest and planning his daily “doubles.” Hearing what he imagined to be a young Etonian after eggs (which he always has for sale), he called out, “Hullo, what do _you_ want?” “I’ve come to see the hounds,” said a voice. “Well, go on through then; they ain’t worth looking at.” “I walked two of them as puppies,” said the voice, this time obviously that of a lady. Of course Champion was up immediately, only too keen to display his hounds to the best advantage and full of apologies for his apparent rudeness. Champion always has a circle of boys clustered round him on Sunday after twelves, and it is one of the greatest pleasures I know at Eton to go to the kennels and talk hunting with him. Once after a good run early in the present season I had to go and tell a farmer about some cattle which had broken through a fence in the Ditton country, and I reached the kennels just in time to see hounds fed after hunting. Afterwards I had tea with the Champions, and a very good tea too, and when I got up to go home I found a beautiful ripe apple ready for me to take. We yarned all the time, and he told me of his Yorkshire days and then of the time he was with a pack of bassets, “that ’ud run an old woman down a path; I’ve see’d ’em do it, Sir,” and then also he mentioned the accident that put an end to his fox-hunting career and which did not occur when actually hunting. It must have been a great blow to him, especially as he was the eldest son of so great a huntsman; but he is devoted to beagling now, and takes an immense pride in his hounds.