"How often those of us for whom Surtees, in blue or in red, is an old and often visited friend have seen a film of obstinate resistance cross the faces of people to whom we sought to introduce him! "Hm, Facey Romford and all that interminably tedious ‘huntin’' stuff"—so, in their wicked innocence, they say. Here and there, brave, curious spirits among them have been persuaded to go picknicking on the seaside downs in the sweltering summer of the year of the Comet and to attend Mr. O'Dicey's little dinner in Plain or Ringlets. They have travelled in a real coach (with no Dickensian romantic nonsense about it) through the opening chapter of Ask Mamma. With Mr. Sponge they have watched now vanished sights from the Jermyn Street of the cigar divans to Lord Scamperdale's lair. And they have been amused, in the company of Mr. Jorrocks, by more things than fox-hunting."
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William Haley (writing under the pseudonym Oliver Edwards), 'Sporting Writers', The Times (28 April 1955), p. 16
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Smith_Surtees
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Robert Smith Surtees
Robert Smith Surtees (May 17 1805 – March 16 1864) was an English journalist, comic novelist and writer on field sports. His best-known creation, the Cockney huntsman Jorrocks, inspired Dickens's Pickwick Papers.
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