about is a tramp over heather or turnips, and a small bag at the end of the day; but if he should ever be found on a grouse moor, or a partridge shooting, he will sneer at the inferior quality of a sport which requires that a man should exhaust himself with useless walking exercise before he gets near his birds.  “Covert-shooting is the game, my boy;” he will say, “most difficult thing in the world when the pheasants are tall, and the finest test of a real sportsman,” and with that he will miss his twentieth grouse, and call down imprecations on the dogs, the light, the keeper, and his own companions.

The Spurious Sportsman is often an officer of the auxiliary forces.  He knows by heart every button of the British Army, talks much upon questions of discipline, and has a more sharply defined and more permanent mark of sunburn across his forehead than any regular officer.  He is also a great stickler for etiquette, and prefers to be addressed as Major or Colonel, as the case may be.  He bears his rank upon his visiting-cards, and frequents a military Club.  In the society of other Spurious Sportsmen he is at his best and noblest.  They gather together at their resorts, each with the sincere conviction that every other member of the little coterie is a confirmed humbug.  Yet they never fail to bring their store of goods, their anecdotes, their experiences, their adventures, and their feats, to a market where admiration and applause are paid down with a liberal hand; for though all know their fellows to be impostors, they are content to sink this knowledge in the desire to gain acceptance and credence for themselves, and thus there never comes a whisper of doubt, hesitation, or disbelief to mar the perfect harmony in which the Spurious Sportsmen live amongst themselves.  Yet, when they have separated, they never fail to hold one another up to ridicule and contempt.

The Spurious Sportsman thus spends the greater part of his life in building up a reputation out of nothing.  As time goes on, he becomes more and more anecdotically experienced, and, if possible, even less actual.  He will have lost his nerve for riding, and a sight which gets daily weaker will have caused him to abandon even the pretence of handling his gun; but he will seek a recompense by becoming a sporting authority, and will pass a doddering old age in lamenting over the decay of all those qualities which formerly made a sportsman a sportsman, and a man a man.

* * * * *

Mr. PUNCH’S dictionary of phrases.

Parliamentary.

“My right honourable and learned friend;” i.e., “A professional politician, devoid alike of principle and capacity.”

“I pass from that matter;” i.e., “Find it somewhat embarrassing.”

“I don’t know where my honourable friend gets his facts from;” i.e., “He should try and get out of his inveterate habit of lying.”