gay old times,
before we got married, and invalided, and all that sort of thing. Dick,
I should like to tell you how I got my first spear."

"Of course you would," the major said, resignedly; "it's my fault for
starting the subject. Get over it quickly then, please." He did not stop
him, though, as he would have done on another occasion--_pour cause_.

"I had been entered some time at boar," Harry began, "before I had any
luck at all. Ride as hard as I would at the start, the old hands _would_
creep up at the finish, just in time to get 'first blood.' I gave long
prices for my Arabs, too, and didn't spare them. I own I got
discouraged, and thought the whole thing a robbery, a delusion, and a
snare. One day, however, we had a good deal of deep, marshy ground at
first, and a quick gallop afterward, which served my light weight well.
I had it all to myself when he came to bay; so I went in, full of
confidence, and gave point, as I thought, well behind the
shoulder-blade. I did not calculate on the pace we were going, and I was
just three inches too forward. My horse was as young and hot as I was,
and though he had no idea of flinching, didn't know how to take care of
himself. The instant the brute felt the steel he wheeled short round,
and cut The Emperor's forelegs clean from under him. We all came down in
a heap; my spear flew yards away; and there I was on my face, clear of
my horse, with my right wrist badly sprained. Would you have fancied the
position? _I_ didn't. The devil was too blown to begin offensive
operations at once, for we had burst him along pretty sharply, but he
stood right over me, champing and rasping his tusks, and getting his
wind for a good vicious rip. I felt his boiling foam dropping upon me as
I lay quite still. I thought that was the best thing to do. All at once
hoofs came up at a hard gallop; something swept above me with a rush;
there was a short, smothered sound like a tap on a padded door, and then
the beast stretched himself slowly out across my legs, and shivered, and
died. That man opposite to you had leapt his horse over us both, and,
while he was in the air, speared the boar through the spinal marrow. If
he had been struck any where else he might still have torn me badly
before the life was out of him. Neatly done, wasn't it?"

Harry drank off the remains of his sherry and seltzer rather excitedly,
and then sighed. He was thinking how often, in other days, when health
and nerves wer