Sporting notions of present days and past

CHAPTER XIX
I
i
COUNTRY DIVERSIONS
To please the majority of correspondents I
should half the time devote myself entirely to
country notes. You would scarcely believe,
readers, what a host of friends the
Referee
and
its humble servants find through treating various
districts in what I may call a friendly way. To
me very great compliment stands in that a large
proportion among those who address us at this
office—not knowing myself personally from
Adam, or Eve, or the Serpent, commonly called
pinch me" in my part of the country—are
ladies professing themselves altogether indifferent
to sport, but pleased to peruse
my Sorting
Notions.
That is very nice and flattering, is it
not ? And mentioning the same is almost as
far as a modest man may decently go free from
suspicion of self-praise. Country life is my chief
delight, and so far as my humble powers go in
dealing with it, the more I do from the real thing
—none of the indoor studio games for me if only
I can get out—the better do I amuse myself.
Do you know that what with one good unknown
(personally) friend and another, I could go a long
way towards illustrating my roundabout notes.
Now and again somebody — notably, an old
rowing member, a S. E.
g
entleman—forwards me
839
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