Joe fflanton 101 



ungentlemanlike to whoever was my companion ; and 

 Joe Manton not being one of the quickest movers, 

 either on horseback or on foot, doubly retarded several 

 of the necessary attacks. 



i8///. Stayed at home with Mr. Childe to arrange for 

 the disposition of the picture, etc., while a friend and Joe 

 Manton went off shooting. Nothing in ' Hudibras,' or 

 'Quixote' could be more ludicrously crisp than the 

 result of their day. They were to beat us all by going in 

 a quiet way, and meant to astonish us by showing what 

 could be done by one dog, and a little poaching on 

 our neighbours. But, (yes, but) as the kitchenmaiti 

 (and the devil) would have it, the aforesaid dog un- 

 happily fell foul of a tub of buttermilk just before 

 starting, with which he so preposterously blew out his 

 paunch that he was pointing all day, not at birds, but to 

 open both his ports, in order to be relieved of what he 

 had taken in ; and before he was sufficiently in trim to 

 do anything but make his deposits from one port, and 

 cast up his accounts from the other, it was time to 

 come home for dinner, and the finale was a deluge of 

 rain. So much for buttermilk. Joe Manton suspected 

 I had played this trick as a punishment for his 

 challenge ; but I was as innocent of the hoax as they 

 were of the murder of game, they having got but seven 

 birds all day. 



\gtli. Fifty partridges and 4 hares, besides lost 

 and divided birds, to my own gun and exclusive share 

 in six hours' shooting with Mr. Henry Fellowes, who 

 is one of the quickest, coolest and best sportsmen I 

 ever entered a field with. He had a rascally gun 



