Envoy Extraordinary by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Nothing but their natural good breeding and a certain sense of stupefaction kept Matresser's guests, gathered together at a fixed rendezvous within the Park, in a sober frame of mind when Mr. Jan van Westrheene joined the group on Thursday morning. He seemed to disentangle himself inch by inch from the interior of the torpedo-shaped racing car which had fetched him from the harbour, until at last the whole six foot seven inches of him stood--a strange and towering figure--amongst the by no means under-sized group of men which comprised the house party. His costume and outfit, too, seemed to add to the unusualness of his appearance. He wore a short double-breasted shooting-coat with an enormous collar, both trimmed with thick fur, beneath which his legs, clad in tight riding-breeches and gaiters, had slowly appeared, their length unduly exaggerated and the gaiters themselves overlapping a pair of wonderful Hessian boots. His hat was a dark green Homburg felt, ornamented with a row of woodcock pin-feathers on the one side and a single cock's feather on the other. He wore his usual eyeglass and a fixed contraction of the lips--a satyr-like caricature of a smile. He was pleased to see everybody. He had hung a cartridge bag, which must have contained nearly three hundred cartridges, over his shoulder, and he had a gun under either arm. He protested smilingly when Humphreys brought up his loader, to whom, however, he was persuaded to transfer all his sporting impedimenta with the exception of his shooting-stick. His host was the only one who seemed to take him entirely as a matter of course.

"We are starting with a partridge drive, van Westrheene," he announced. "Shoot a high cock pheasant if one comes over. Leave the low hens, as they are bound to come out again from the wood."