FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS 99 



bining aesthetic pleasure with sporting pursuits," 

 he called it. Somehow we had managed to bring 

 down a brace of pheasants, which, with three 

 rabbits, made up our total, out of a covert which 

 ought to have yielded ten times as many. 



' I daresay you won't believe this story, but it's 

 true all the same. If you don't believe it, write to 

 Whichello himself. I never saw anyone half so 

 pleased as he was. He had given up all his time 

 to teaching his rustics music, with a view to this 

 performance, and had shoved in, as one of his 

 keepers, a sporting third violin from the Drury 

 Lane orchestra. They said it was glorious, and 

 congratulated one another all round with as much 

 enthusiasm as if they'd repelled a foreign in- 

 vasion. On the next beat they played the " March 

 in Scipio," and after that came a " Pot-Pourri of 

 Popular Melodies," arranged by the keeper. They 

 played a selection from " The Pirates of Penzance " 

 while we lunched, and took the big wood to the 

 tunes of " Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay " and " Uprouse ye 

 then, my merry, merry Men ! " " Eule Britannia " 

 and "Home, Sweet Home," played us back to the 

 house. I never heard such a confounded babel of 

 brass and wood in all my life. A German band in 



