But to return to the Surrey.  The town of Croydon, nine miles from the standard in Cornhill, is the general rendezvous of the gallant sportsmen.  It is the principal market town in the eastern division of the county of Surrey; and the chaw-bacons who carry the produce of their acres to it, instead of to the neighbouring village of London, retain much of their pristine barbarity.  The town furnishes an interesting scene on a hunting morning, particularly on a Saturday.  At an early hour, groups of grinning cits may be seen pouring in from the London side, some on the top of Cloud’s coaches,[1] some in taxed carts, but the greater number mounted on good serviceable-looking nags, of the invaluable species, calculated for sport or business, “warranted free from vice, and quiet both to ride and in harness”; some few there are, who, with that kindness and considerate attention which peculiarly mark this class of sportsmen, have tacked a buggy to their hunter, and given a seat to a friend, who leaning over the back of the gig, his jocund phiz turned towards his fidus Achates, leads his own horse behind, listening to the discourse of “his ancient,” or regaling him “with sweet converse”; and thus they onward jog, until the sign of the “Greyhound,” stretching quite across the main street, greets their expectant optics, and seems to forbid their passing the open portal below.  In they wend then, and having seen their horses “sorted,” and the collar marks (as much as may be) carefully effaced by the shrewd application of a due quantity of grease and lamp-black, speed in to “mine host” and order a sound repast of the good things of this world; the which to discuss, they presently apply themselves with a vigour that indicates as much a determination to recruit fatigue endured, as to lay in stock against the effects of future exertion.  Meanwhile the bustle increases; sportsmen arrive by the score, fresh tables are laid out, covered with “no end” of vivers; and towards the hour of nine, may be heard to perfection, that pleasing assemblage of sounds issuing from the masticatory organs of a number of men steadfastly and studiously employed in the delightful occupation of preparing their mouthfuls for deglutition.  “O noctes coenaeque Deum,” said friend Flaccus.  Oh, hunting breakfasts! say we.  Where are now the jocund laugh, the repartee, the oft-repeated tale, the last debate?  As our sporting contemporary, the Quarterly, said, when describing the noiseless pursuit of old reynard by the Quorn:  “Reader, there is no crash now, and not much music.”  It is the tinker that makes a great noise over a little work, but, at the pace these men are eating, there is no time for babbling.  So, gentle lector, there is now no leisure for bandying compliments, ’tis your small eater alone who chatters o’er his meals; your true-born sportsman is ever a silent and, consequently, an assiduous grubber.  True it is that occasionally space is found between mouthfuls to vociferate “Waiter!” in a tone that requires not repetition; and most sonorously do the throats of the assembled eaters re-echo the sound; but this is all—­no useless exuberance of speech—­no, the knife or fork is directed towards what is wanted, nor needs there any more expressive intimation of the applicant’s wants.