"You don't know Charley I can see," said Halbert. "Poor little fox, indeed! Why, it's as fair a match between the best-tried pack of hounds in England, and an old dog-fox, as one would wish to see. And as hard work as it is to ride up to them, even without a stiff fence at every two hundred yards, to roll you over on your head, if your horse is blown or clumsy. Just consider how many are run, and how few are killed. I consider a fox to be the noblest quarry in the world. His speed, courage, and cunning are wonderful. I have seen a fox run fifteen miles as the crow flies, and only three of us in at the death. That's what I call sport." "So do I, by Jove!" said Jim. "You have some good sport in India, too?" "Yes. Pig-sticking is pretty--very pretty, I may say, if you have two or three of the right sort with you. All the Griffins ought to hunt together though. There was a young fellow, a King's-officer, and a nobleman too, came out with us the other day, and rode well forward, but as the pig turned he contrived to spear my horse through the pastern. He was full of apologies, and I was outwardly highly polite and indifferent, but internally cursing him up hill and down dale. I went home and had the horse shot; but when I got up next morning, there was a Syce leading up and down a magnificent Australian, a far finer beast than the one which I had lost, which my Lord had sent up to replace my unfortunate nag. I went down to his quarters and refused to accept it; but he forced me in the end, and it gave me a good lesson about keeping my temper over an unavoidable accident, which I don't mean to forget. Don't you think it was prettily done?" "Yes, I do," said Jim; "but you see these noblemen are so rich that they can afford to do that sort of thing, where you or I couldn't. But I expect they are very good fellows on the whole." "There are just as large a proportion of good noblemen as there are of any other class--more than that you have no right to expect. I'm a Liberal, as my father was before me, and a pretty strong one too; but I think that a man with sixty thousand acres, and a seat in the House of Lords, is entitled to a certain sort of respect. A Grand Seigneur is a very capital institution if he will only stay on his estates some part of the year." "Ay!" said Jim; who was a shrewd fellow in his way. "They know that here, well enough: look at our Macarthurs and Wentworths,--but then they must be men, and not snobs, as the governor says." When they got home, they found Sam and Alice sitting in the verandah as comfortable as you please. "Well," said Jim, "you are a nice lot! This is what you call kangaroo-hunting!" "Oh, you went too fast for us. Have you killed?" "Yes! out by the big swamp." "You have taken your time to get home then." "Poor Bolt is cut up, and we couldn't go out of a walk. Now give us something to eat, will you, Alice?" "Well, ring the bell and we will have lunch."