We all think “pedantic popinjays” simply splendid.  Is it your own?

Don’t tell old Banana Skin, but I’ve had the nerve to enter my Sealyham for the “All Comers” event at Brooch.

So glad you’re not to be trifled with.  Selah.

Yours faithfully,

BERRY PLEYDELL.

H. BASON, Esq._

In two days’ time we should meet at Philippi.

It must be confessed that there were moments when we remembered our precipitancy in some uneasiness.  Nobby was well bred, but he had not cost six hundred pounds.  Always he looked his best, and his best was extremely good.  His many excellent points were set off by a most attractive air and a singular charm and sprightliness of manner.  Every movement and pose was full of grace, and he had the brightest eyes that I have ever seen.  But Blue Bandala was clearly a “show” animal.  Could our little David beat this very Goliath among dogs, and that upon the latter’s own ground?  Could our little amateur take on a plus-four professional and beat him at his own game?  There was no manner of doubt that angels would at least have walked delicately where we had rushed in.  However, it was too late now.  Even if we would, we could not draw back.  Beyond doing what we could to keep him as fit as a fiddle, there was nothing to be done.

After a bath I put on a tweed suit, concealed my discarded and sole surviving pair of white trousers from the rapacious eye of a random housemaid, and descended to lunch.

An hour later Adele and Nobby and I were all in the Rolls, sailing along the soft brown roads en route for Fallow Hill.

It was a day of great loveliness, and the forest ways were one and all beset with a rare glory.

Thirty-six hours before, the first frost of autumn had touched the breast of Earth with silver finger-tips.  ’Twas but a runaway knock.  The mischief-loving knave was gone again, before the bustling dame had braced herself to open to her pert visitor.  Maybe the rogue was beating up his quarters.  The time of his dreaded lodgment was not yet.  His apprehensive hostess was full of smiles.  Summer was staying on....

Yet on the livery of the countryside the accolade of Frost had wrought a wonder.  Two days ago the world was green.  To-day a million leaves glanced, green as before, yet with a new-found lustre—­something of red in it, something of gold, something of sober brown.  But the wonder was not to the trees.  It was the humble bracken that had been dubbed knight.  The homespun of the forest was become cloth of pure gold, glittering, flawless.  In the twinkling of an eye the change had come.  Here was an acre spread with the delicate fronds, and there a ragged mile, and yonder but shreds and patches—­yet all of magic gold, flinging the sunlight back, lighting the shadows, making the humblest ride too rich for kings to trample till the green roofs and walls looked dull beside it, and the ephemeral magnificence took Memory by the throat and wrung a lease of life from that Reversioner.