Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/144

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136
"BONES AND I."

didn't, for there had been barely time to get a word in edgeways, or my parable would have exhausted itself concerning a running high leap.) 'But there is nothing like a real pedestrian left; they don't breed 'em, sir, in these days: can't grow them, and don't know how to train them if they could! Show me a fellow who would make a match with Barclay to-day. Barclay, sir, if he were alive, would walk all your best men down after he came in from shooting. Ask your young friends which of 'em would like to drive the mail from London to Edinburgh without a greatcoat! I don't know what's come to the present generation. It must be the smoking, or the light claret, perhaps. They're done, they're used up, they're washed out. Why, they go to covert by railway, and have their grouse driven to them on a hill! What would old Sir Tatton or Osbaldeston say to such doings