And there is this also to be said
in excuse, that sport, which calls for the exercise of some of the
noblest attributes of man's nature, not infrequently leads him into
mean traps and pitfalls. For there are few men who can aver, with
perfect accuracy, that they have never added a foot or two to their
longest shot, or to the highest jump of their favourite horse, and
have never, in short, exaggerated a difficulty in order to increase
the triumph of overcoming it. But the modesty that confines most men
within reasonable limits of untruthfulness has no restraining power
over the Spurious Sportsman, to whom somewhat, therefore, may be
forgiven for the sake of the warning he affords.
He is, as a rule, a dweller in London, for it is there that he finds
the largest stock of credulity and tolerance. To walk with him in the
streets, or to travel with him in a train, is to receive for nothing
a liberal education in sport. No man has ever shot a greater number
of rocketing pheasants with a more unerring accuracy than he has--in
Pall Mall, St. James's Street, or Piccadilly.
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