Old Mr Topps, in rising from his chair, did not say very much.  He had been hunting in the Runnymede country for nearly fifty years, and had never seen anything so sad as this before.  It made him, he knew, very unhappy.  As for foxes, there were always plenty of foxes in his coverts.  His friend Mr Jawstock, on the right, would explain what all this was about.  All he wanted was to see the Runnymede hunt properly kept up.  Then he sat down, and Mr Jawstock rose to his legs.

Mr Jawstock was a gentleman well known in the Runnymede country, who had himself been instrumental in bringing the Major into these parts.  There is often someone in a hunting country who never becomes a master of hounds himself, but who has almost as much to say about the business as the master himself.  Sometimes at hunt meetings he is rather unpopular, as he is always inclined to talk.  But there are occasions on which his services are felt to be valuable,—­as were Mr Jawstock’s at present.  He was about forty-five years of age, and was not much given to riding, owned no coverts himself, and was not a man of wealth; but he understood the nature of hunting, knew all its laws, and was a judge of horses, of hounds,—­and of men; and could say a thing when he had to say it.

Mr Jawstock sat on the right hand of Mr Topps, and a place was left for the master opposite.  The task to be performed was neither easy nor pleasant.  It was necessary that the orator should accuse the gentleman opposite to him,—­a man with whom he himself had been very intimate,—­of iniquity so gross and so mean, that nothing worse can be conceived.  ’You are a swindler, a cheat, a rascal of the very deepest dye;—­a rogue so mean that it is revolting to be in the same room with you!’ That was what Mr Jawstock had to say.  And he said it.  Looking round the room, occasionally appealing to Mr Topps, who on these occasions would lift up his hands in horror, but never letting his eye fall for a moment on the Major.  Mr Jawstock told his story.  ‘I did not see it done,’ said he.  ’I know nothing about it.  I never was at Doncaster in my life.  But you have evidence of what the Jockey Club thinks.  The Master of our Hunt has been banished from racecourses.’  Here there was considerable opposition, and a few short but excited little dialogues were maintained;—­throughout all which Tifto restrained himself like a Spartan.  ’At any rate he has been thoroughly disgraced,’ continued Mr Jawstock, ’as a sporting man.  He has been driven out of the Beargarden Club.’  ’He resigned in disgust at their treatment,’ said a friend of the Major’s.  ’Then let him resign in disgust at ours,’ said Mr Jawstock, ’for we won’t have him here.  Caesar wouldn’t keep a wife who was suspected of infidelity, nor will the Runnymede country endure a Master of Hounds who is supposed to have driven a nail into a horse’s foot.’

Two or three other gentlemen had something to say before the Major was allowed to speak,—­the upshot of the discourse of all of them being the same.  The Major must go.