When you come back to town do not say to what precise part of the
Continent you have been, or you may be found out; "A Walking Tour in
Norway" is, however, tolerably safe; and the principal objects may be
read up from Murray's "Handbook." If you were seen at the aforesaid
Margate, or Gravesend (as the case may be), say you were obliged to go
one day to the horrid place, to see a fellow who had sold you a horse.
That if you are in debt, the heavy fogs will allow you to walk past the
doors of your principal creditors, which will open several new
promenades to you.
If you wish to pass for a fox-hunter, take a day ticket on the
Birmingham rail, in the second-class carriages, in pink and leathers.
Everybody will then suppose you have a horse in a box behind—an
impression of which you are not bound to disabuse them. This is what in
melodramas is called "joining the hunting train."
That scarlet-runners may now be planted in ditches, and trained along
ploughed fields in their stirrups.