IN FULL CRY

Riding to hounds is one of the few forms of sport which appeal to me,
and I should like it better still if no fox or other creature
were tortured.

On that point Dulcie and I had long been agreed; it was one of many
questions upon which we saw eye to eye, for on some subjects our
views differed.

"It seems to me grotesque," I remember her saying to me once, "that we
English should hold up our hands in horror at the thought of
bull-fights, while so many of us take pleasure in the hateful business
of the kill in fox-hunting."

In reply I had explained to her that the art of diplomacy lies in seeing
the beam in the other man's eye and drawing attention to it, while
blinding oneself to the mote in one's own, and if possible convincing
the other man that the mote does not exist. Dulcie, however, had her
full share of intelligence, with the result that, in modern slang, she
"wasn't taking any."

"In that case," she had retorted, "you should feel thankful that you are
not a diplomat, Mike. You have your points, but tact and logic are not
among them, you know!"

Sir Roland always mounted me when I stayed at Holt Manor in the hunting
season, and already I had enjoyed two capital days' sport. Pressed to
do so--and it had not needed great persuasion--instead of returning to