1 6 A Book of the Snipe, 



seem a teeming ant-heap of another sphere, 

 so far away, so stuffy, and so undesirable 

 does it appear. It seems an insult to bring 

 your ejector and your smart Norfolk jacket 

 into these solitudes, where the curlew rears 

 its young, and the water - rail, shyest of 

 slinking creatures, flaps up painfully at your 

 feet. 



Failing these, there is the pleasure in 

 the failure itself. Despite your ejector, you 

 cannot hit those snipe, and you won't until 

 you get the London fog out of your eyes, 

 and the "slows" from the arms underneath 

 that Norfolk jacket. But one day perhaps 

 you will, if you are not blind or incurably 

 stiff, suddenly find that hand and eye have 

 entered into partnership with your gun at last. 

 You will have acquired that undefinable 

 sixth sense, the *' knack." Crack ! you have 

 snapped him to the earth almost before he 

 had time to scream. Bang! A long left 

 barrel has crumpled his brother like a rag in 

 the air, to fall with a splash into a pool. You 

 have scored your first right and left at snipe. 



