“A superfine black cloth coat, lappels sewed on” (we wonder if they are usually pinned or glued) “lappels sewed on, cloth collar, cotton sleeve linings, velvet handfacings,” (most likely cotton too,) “embossed edges and fine wove buttons”—how much does the reader think? four guineas? four pound ten? five guineas? No, five pound eighteen and sixpence! An article that our own excellent tailor supplies for three pounds fifteen! In a tailor’s case that was recently tried, a party swore that fourteen guineas was a fair price for a Taglioni, when every body knows that they are to be had for less than four. But boys will be boys to the end of the chapter, so let us return to our sporting Major. He is not so happy in his nether garments as he is in his upper ones; indeed he has on the same boots and moleskins that Leech drew him in at Tantivy Castle, for these lower habiliments are not so easy of accomplishment in the country as coats, and though most people have tried them there, few wear them out, they are always so ugly and unbecoming. As, however, our Major doesn’t often compare his with town-made ones, he struts about in the comfortable belief that they are all right—very smart.
He is now in a terrible stew, and has been backwards and forwards between the house and the stable, and in and out of the kennel, and has called Solomon repeatedly from his work to give him further instructions and further instructions still, until the Major has about confused himself and every body about him. As soon as ever he heard by his tramp overhead that Billy had got into his boots, he went to the bottom of the stairs and holloaed along the passage towards the kitchen. “Betty! Betty! Betty! send in breakfast as soon as ever Mr. Pringle comes down!”’ “Ah, dere is de Majur.” observed Monsieur, pausing from Billy’s hair-arranging to listen—“him kick up dc deval’s own dost on a huntin’ mornin’.”
“Don’t know—but von vould think he was going to storm a city—take Sebastopol himself,” replied Monsieur, shrugging his broad shoulders. He then resumed his valeting operations, and crowned the whole by putting Billy into his green cut-away, without giving him even a peep of the pink.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Yammerton has been holding a court of inquiry in the kitchen and larder, as to the extent of the overnight mischief, smelling at this dish and that, criticising the spoons, and subjecting each castor-oily offender to severe ablution in boiling water. Of course no one could tell in whose hands the bottle of “cold drawn” had come “in two,” and Monsieur was too good a judge to know anything about it; so as the mischief couldn’t be repaired, it was no use bewailing it farther than to make a knot in her mind to be more careful of such dangerous commodities in future.