rteenth cousin died, leaving him a large fortune. He
purchased an estate in Yorkshire, and became a "county family," and then
his real troubles began.

From May to the middle of August, save for a little fly fishing, which
generally resulted in his getting his feet wet and catching a cold, life
was fairly peaceful; but from early autumn to late spring he found the
work decidedly trying. He was a stout man, constitutionally nervous of
fire-arms, and a six-hours' tramp with a heavy gun across ploughed
fields, in company with a crowd of careless persons who kept blazing away
within an inch of other people's noses, harassed and exhausted him. He
had to get out of bed at four on chilly October mornings to go
cub-hunting, and twice a week throughout the winter--except when a
blessed frost brought him a brief respite--he had to ride to hounds. That
he usually got off with nothing more serious than mere bruises and slight
concussions of the spine, he probably owed to the fortunate circumstances
of his being little and fat. At stiff timber he shut his eyes and rode
hard; and ten yards from a river he would begin to think about bridges.

Yet he never complained.

"If you are a country gentleman," he would say, "you must behave as a
country gentleman, and take the rough with the smooth."

As ill fate would have it a chance speculation doubled his fortune, and
it became necessary that he should go into Parliament and start a yacht.
Parliament made his head ache, and the yacht made him sick.
Notwithstanding, every summer he would fill it with a lot of expensive
people who bored him, and sail away for a month's misery in the
Mediterranean.

During one cruise his guests built up a highly-interesting gambling
scandal. He himself was confined to his cabin at the time, and knew
nothing about it; but the Opposition papers, getting hold of the story,
referred casually to the yacht as a "floating hell," and _The Police
News_ awarded his portrait the place of honour as the chief criminal of
the week.

Later on he got into a cultured set, ruled by a thick-lipped
undergraduate. His favourite literature had hitherto been of the Corelli
and _Tit-Bits_ order, but now he read Meredith and the yellow book, and
tried to understand them; and instead of the Gaiety, he subscribed to the
Independent Theatre, and fed "his soul," on Dutch Shakespeares. What he
liked in art was a pretty girl by a cottage-door with an eligible young
man in th