airs and belongings upon the unhappy country-side which he had decided to make the scene of his rural education.  Before that I used to see him constantly.  After that I quite lost sight of him.  Occasionally I read paragraphs in weekly papers about immense festivities due to the enterprise of the CHUMPS, and from time to time I received local papers containing long accounts of hunt breakfasts, athletic sports, the roasting of whole oxen, and other such stirring country incidents in which it appeared that the CHUMPS took a prominent part.  I will do BEN the credit to say that he never omitted to mark with broad red pencil those parts which referred specially to himself, or reported any speech he may have happened to make.

Eventually that which I dreaded came about.  Circumstances made it impossible for me to refuse an invitation to Carchester Manor, and on a certain evening in the first week of December I found myself a guest under the roof of the CHUMPS.  The entertainment provided was, I am bound to say, magnificent.  Every want that the most exacting guest could feel was supplied almost before he had expressed it, and all that gorgeous rooms, stately retainers and irreproachable cooking could do to secure our comfort was done at Carchester Manor.  But CHUMP himself was on that first evening the grandest spectacle of all.  He overpowered me.  Like some huge Spanish galleon making her way with bellying sails and majestic progress amidst a fleet of cockle-shells, so did CHUMP bear himself amidst his party.  The neighbouring magnates came to meet us.  Lord and Lady AGINCOURT with their charming daughter Lady MABEL POICTIERS, Sir GEORGE BUCKWHEAT and his wife, the Reverend Canon and Mrs. CATSPAW, and a host of others were there to do CHUMP honour.  I thought of POLYCRATES and his ring and of other well-known examples.  Something I knew must happen to disturb this edifice of pompous grandeur.  The something was not long in coming, for just after CHUMP had expatiated at immense length upon the vintages of France, after he had offered to stock the failing cellars of Lord AGINCOURT from his own, after the butler had, with due parade, placed two corks at his master’s side in token of the treat that was to follow, it was discovered by little BILLY SILTZER, an impudent dog without veneration or reticence, that both the bottles of Pontet Canet were disgustingly corked.  To my relief, but to CHUMP’s discomfiture, BILLY announced his discovery.  “BEN, my boy,” he shouted across the table, “the moths have been at this tap of wine.  I’m afraid his Lordship won’t care to take it off your hands.”  BEN became blue with suppressed fury.  The trembling butler obeyed his angry summons.  “Take that stuff away,” said BEN, “and drink it yourself.  Bring fresh wine at once.”  But, alas, for wasted indignation, no more Pontet Canet was forthcoming, and we had to satisfy ourselves on a wine whose inferiority no flourish of trumpets could disguise.