and TITTERTON’s hand, and shaken the latter with a ferocious heartiness.  “OW!” screamed TOM.  It was a short exclamation, but a world of agony was concentrated into it.  “The old bear has spoilt my shooting for the day,” said TITTERTON to me afterwards, as he missed his tenth partridge.  That very evening, I remember, there was a great discussion in the smoking-room on the subject of wrestling.  One of the party, a burly youth of twenty-six, boasted somewhat loudly of the tricks that a Cornishman had lately taught him.  For a long time the General sat silently puffing his cigar, but at length the would-be wrestler said something that roused him.  “Would you mind showing me how that’s done?” he said; “I seem to remember something about it, but it was done differently in my time.  No doubt your notion’s an improvement.”  Nothing loth the burly one stood up.  I don’t quite know what happened.  The General seemed to stoop with outstretched hands and then raise himself with a spring as he met his opponent.  A large body hurtled through the air, and in a moment the younger man was lying flat on the carpet amidst the shouts of the company.  “It’s the old ‘flying mare’ my boy,” said the General to me, “a very useful dodge.  I learnt it fifty years ago.”

In the company of young men the General is at his very best.  He knows all their little weaknesses, and chaffs them with delightful point and humour, though he would not, for all the world, give them pain.  It is a pleasant sight to see the old fellow with a party of his young friends, poking sly fun at them, laughing with them, taking all their jests in good part, and thoroughly enjoying himself.  He can walk most of them off their legs still, can row with them on the broad reaches of the Thames, and keep his form with the best of them; he can hold his gun straight at driven birds, and revel like a boy in a rattling run to hounds across country.  All the youngsters respect him by instinct, and love the cheery old fellow, whose heart is as soft as his muscles are hard.  They talk to him as to an elder brother, come to him for his advice, and, which is perhaps even more strange, like it, and follow it.  Withal, the General is the most modest of men.  In his youth he was a mighty man of war.  It was only the other day that I heard (not from his own lips, you may be sure) the thrilling stories of his hand-to-hand conflict with two gigantic Russians in the fog of Inkermann, and of his rescue of a wounded Sergeant at the attack in the Redan.  With women, old or young, the General uses an old-fashioned and chivalrous courtesy, as far removed from latter-day smartness as was BAYARD from BOULANGER.  The younger ones adore him.  They all seem to be his nieces, for they all call him Uncle JOHN.