that such a thing as a fox should be found within a day's ride of the
suburbs. The very idea seems preposterous, for one cannot but associate
the charms of a "find" with the horrors of "going to ground" in an
omnibus, or the fox being headed by a great Dr. Eady placard, or some
such monstrosity. Mr. Mayne,[6] to be sure, has brought racing home to
every man's door, but fox-hunting is not quite so tractable a sport. But
to our story.

[Footnote 6: The promoter of the Hippodrome, near Bayswater--a
speculation that soon came to grief.]

It was on a nasty, cold, foggy, dark, drizzling morning in the month of
February, that the Yorkshireman, having been offered a "mount" by Mr.
Jorrocks, found himself shivering under the Piazza in Covent Garden
about seven o'clock, surrounded by cabs, cabbages, carrots, ducks,
dollys, and drabs of all sorts, waiting for his horse and the appearance
of the friend who had seduced him into the extraordinary predicament of
attiring himself in top-boots and breeches in London. After pacing up
and down some minutes, the sound of a horse's hoofs were heard turning
down from Long Acre, and reaching the lamp-post at the corner of James
Street, his astonished eyes were struck with the sight of a man in a
capacious, long, full-tailed, red frock coat reaching nearly to his
spurs, with mother-of-pearl buttons, with sporting devices--which
afterwards proved to be foxes, done in black--brown shag breeches, that
would have been spurned by the late worthy master of the Hurworth,[7]
and boots, that looked for all the world as if they were made to tear up
the very land and soil, tied round the knees with pieces of white tape,
the flowing ends of which dangled over the mahogany-coloured tops. Mr.
Jorrocks--whose dark collar, green to his coat, and _tout ensemble_,
might have caused him to be mistaken for a mounted general postman--was