Ten Lords A-Leaping Read Online Free PDF Page B

than unfair.’
    ‘Oh bollocks. I’m sick of the word “fair”. Life ain’t fair. The bleedin’ human condition ain’t fair. All you can do is muddle on as best you can and try and make life as good for most people as is possible in this world. I don’t think we do too badly at that in Britain. What you don’t do is reduce it all to the lowest bloody common denominator, as prescribed by pain-in-the-arse blue stockings like Beatrice fuckin’ Parsons.’
    ‘Has she got a line on fox-hunting?’
    ‘What do you think?’ Deptford made a valiant, if unsuccessful, attempt to mimic an educated upper-class female: ‘It’s twisted, degenerate, sadistic, anachronistic, aristocratic – need I go on?’
    ‘Your kind of gal, clearly.’
    ‘Oh, yeah. Real fun-lover. Bloody woman probably has ’alf a glass of dry white wine every eighteenth Tuesday. Mind you, it’s a big disadvantage for the antis that she’s the government spokesman. That could win us over a lot of waverers.’
    ‘What’s the tally?’
    ‘Well, we’ve got to drag a lot of the backwoodsmen up here to vote, I guess. It’s all those townie life peers that are the problem. They don’t turn up much at the ’ouse but they will come in for what they consider a moral issue. Won’t listen to half the arguments, just vote blindly. It’s no skin off their nose.’
    ‘Have you an organized campaign?’
    ‘Well we ’ave and we ’aven’t. Tell you what. Bertie can tell you a bit about it. He’ll be joining us shortly for a drink and then we can all have lunch.’
    ‘Frankly, old boy, I’ve been a bit worried from time to time. Won’t deny the old nightmare that hunting will just be abolished by default. You see, the truth is that many of those who feel most passionately about it are perhaps rather less than articulate. I mean, look what happened with deer-hunting?’
    ‘What did happen? It was last year, wasn’t it? I didn’t really follow it.’
    ‘First place in the lottery for private members’ bills went to Gavin Chandler. Know who I mean?’
    Amiss knitted his brows. ‘High-minded Liberal Democrat who goes on a lot about morality in international relations, isn’t he?’
    ‘Correct. Without knowing what he’s talking about, naturally. That always makes it easier to pronounce on morality…’
    ‘He’s a perpendicular-looking Puseyite pig-jobber,’ interjected Deptford. ‘Ooh, sorry, Robert. When I gets really excited I tends to quote Jorrocks.’
    ‘Who, as no doubt you will find out, Robert, was a dab hand at insults. Now, to continue. Chandler’s constituency is in the West Country and he absolutely hates and despises all the Tories. So he took a particular delight in abolishing what he considered an important symbol of their depravity – deer-hunting. And since most MPs don’t know one end of a deer from another, it passed through the Commons virtually unchallenged. And no one in Lords put up any kind of decent defence. Just lay down under it. I can tell you, we’re lucky parts of the West Country haven’t seceded.’
    ‘And now the same thing’s ’appening with fox-huntin’. And barring a bleedin’ miracle…’
    ‘Or a spirited campaign…’
    ‘We’ll be right in the shit this time. Letting deer-huntin’ go is bad enough. But fox-huntin’…’
    ‘I tend to agree,’ said Stormerod. ‘Although I don’t hunt myself, I take a dim view of abolishing what Trollope called “our national sport”, even if it has a smaller following than it used to have. But we’ve been pretty well ambushed again. Still reeling from the deer-hunting debacle – can you believe it? – we’ve once more been caught napping.’ He sighed. ‘It’s all been a pretty sorry business. First thing that happened was an obscure backbencher called Coulter drew first place in the lottery for private members’ bills. He hadn’t any sort of form on hunting so it wasn’t until very late in the day we discovered he’d been nobbled by the