FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS 49 



CHAPTEE IX 



THE SMOKING-ROOM 

 (With which is incorporated ' Aneqdotes ') 



LET us imagine, if you please, that the toils and 

 trampings of the day are over. You are staying 

 at a comfortable country-house with friends whom 

 you like. You have had a good day at your host's 

 pheasants and his rabbits. Your shooting has 

 been fairly accurate, not ostentatiously brilliant, 

 but on the whole satisfactory. You have followed 

 out the hints given in my previous chapters, and 

 are consequently looked upon as a pleasant fellow 

 with plenty to say for himself. After tea, in the 

 drawing-room, you have had an hour or two for 

 the writing of letters, which you have, of course, 

 not written, for the reading of the morning papers 

 from London, which you have skimmed with a faint 

 interest, and for the forty or eighty or one hundred 

 and twenty winks in an arm-chair in front of the 



E 



