8 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



should be kept in fine oil, not thickly encrusting it, 

 but, as it were, rubbed into and oozing from the pores 

 of the metal and wood. Paraffin is an abomination 

 in his eyes (for preserving from rust), and no modern 

 patent oil, he thinks, can compare with a drop of gin 

 for the locks — the spirit never congeals in cold 

 weather, and the hammer comes up with a clear, 

 sharp snick. He has two or three small screwdrivers 

 and gunsmith's implements to take the locks to 

 pieces ; for gentlemen are sometimes careless and 

 throw their guns down on the wet grass, and if a 

 single drop of water should by chance penetrate 

 under the plate it will play mischief with the works, 

 if the first speck of rust be not forthwith removed. 



His dog-whistle hangs at his buttonhole. His 

 pocket-knife is a basket of tools in itself, most pro- 

 bably a present from some youthful sportsman who 

 was placed under his care to learn how to handle a 

 gun. The corkscrew it contains has seen much 

 service at luncheon-time, when under a sturdy oak, or 

 in a sheltered nook of the lane, where the hawthorn 

 hedge and the fern broke the force of the wind, a 

 merry shooting party sat down to a well-packed 

 hamper and wanted some one to draw the corks. 

 Not but what the back of the larger blade has not 

 artistically tapped off the neck of many a bottle, 



