Mr. Waffles, like many men with nothing to do, was most unpunctual.  He never seemed to know what o’clock it was, and yet he had a watch, hung in chains, and gewgaws, like a lady’s chatelaine.  Hunting partook of the general confusion.  He did not profess to throw off till eleven, but it was often nearly twelve before he cast up.  Then he would come up full tilt, surrounded by ‘scarlets,’ like a general with his staff; and once at the meet, there was a prodigious hurry to begin, equalled only by the eagerness to leave off.  On this auspicious day he hove in sight, coming best pace along the road, about twenty minutes before twelve, with a more numerous retinue than usual.  In dress, Mr. Waffles was the light, butterfly order of sportsman—­once-round tie, French polish, paper boots, and so on.  On this occasion he sported a shirt-collar with three or four blue lines, and then a white space followed by three or more blue lines, the whole terminating in blue spots about the size of fourpenny pieces at the points; a once-round blue silk tie, with white spots and flying ends.  His coat was a light, jackety sort of thing, with little pockets behind, something in the style of Mr. Sponge’s (a docked dressing-gown), but wanting the outside seaming, back strapping, and general strength that characterized Mr. Sponge’s.  His waistcoat, of course, was a worked one—­heart’s-ease mingled with foxes’ heads, on a true blue ground, the gift of—­we’ll not say who—­his leathers were of the finest doe-skin, and his long-topped, pointed-toed boots so thin as to put all idea of wet or mud out of the question.

Such was the youth who now cantered up and took off his cap to the rank, beauty, and fashion, assembled at Whirleypool Windmill.  He then proceeded to pay his respects in detail.  At length, having exhausted his ‘nothings,’ and said the same thing over again in a dozen different ways to a dozen different ladies, he gave a slight jerk of the head to Tom Towler, who forthwith whistled his hounds together, and attended by the whips, bustled from the scene.

[Illustration:  CAPTAIN GREATGUN]

Epping Hunt, in its most palmy days could not equal the exhibition that now took place.  Some of the more lively of the horses, tired of waiting, perhaps pinched by the cold, for most of them were newly clipped, evinced their approbation of the move, by sundry squeals and capers, which being caught by others in the neighbourhood, the infection quickly spread, and in less than a minute there was such a scene of rocking, and rearing, and kicking, and prancing, and neighing and shooting over heads, and rolling over tails, and hanging on by manes, mingled with such screamings from the ladies in the flys, and such hearty-sounding kicks against splash boards and fly bottoms, from sundry of the vicious ones in harness, as never was witnessed.  One gentleman, in a bran-new scarlet, mounted on a flourishing piebald, late the property of Mr. Batty, stood pawing