“Hunting is not one of your amusements.”

“Yes it is.  I’ve been a hunter myself.  I’ve had nothing to eat but what I killed for a month together.  That’s more than any of your hunters can say.  A hundred dogs to kill one fox!”

“Not all at the same time, Mr. Gotobed.”

“And you have got none now?”

“I don’t hunt myself.”

“And does nobody hunt the foxes about here at present?” Then Morton explained that on the Saturday following the U.R.U. hounds, under the mastership of that celebrated sportsman Captain Glomax, would meet at eleven o’clock exactly at the spot on which they were then standing, and that if Mr. Gotobed would walk out after breakfast he should see the whole paraphernalia, including about half a hundred “dogs,” and perhaps a couple of hundred men on horseback.  “I shall be delighted to see any institution of this great country,” said Mr. Gotobed, “however much opposed it may be to my opinion either of utility or rational recreation.”  Then, having nearly eaten up one cigar, he lit another preparatory to eating it, and sauntered back to the house.

Before dinner that evening there were a few words between the Paragon and his grandmother.  “I’m afraid you won’t like my American friend,” he said.

“He is all very well, John.  Of course an American member of Congress can’t be an English gentleman.  You, in your position, have to be civil to such people.  I dare say I shall get on very well with Mr. Gotobed.”

“I must get somebody to meet him.”

“Lady Augustus and her daughter are coming.”

“They knew each other in Washington.  And there will be so many ladies.”

“You could ask the Coopers from Mallingham,” suggested the lady.

“I don’t think they would dine out.  He’s getting very old.”

“And I’m told the Mainwarings at Dillsborough are very nice people,” said Mrs. Morton, who knew that Mr. Mainwaring at any rate came from a good family.

“I suppose they ought to call first.  I never saw them in my life. 
Reginald Morton, you know, is living at Hoppet Hall in
Dillsborough.”

“You don’t mean to say you wish to ask him to this house?”

“I think I ought.  Why should I take upon myself to quarrel with a man I have not seen since I was a child, and who certainly is my cousin?”

“I do not know that he is your cousin; nor do you.”

John Morton passed by the calumny which he had heard before, and which he knew that it was no good for him to attempt to subvert.  “He was received here as one of the family, ma’am.”

“I know he was; and with what result?”

“I don’t think that I ought to turn my back upon him because my great-grandfather left property away from me to him.  It would give me a bad name in the county.  It would be against me when I settle down to live here.  I think quarrelling is the most foolish thing a man can do,—­especially with his own relations.”