202 SHOOTING THE GROUSE 



those mentioned above as the reach-me-down clothes 

 shop to the high-class West End tailor. These 

 I cannot recommend. I must not conclude this 

 necessary digression on choice of guns without adding 

 that he who lives in the country entirely, and cannot 

 afford the price of the first-rate London firm, will do 

 better to employ a provincial maker of known re- 

 pute. Of these there are several in England and 

 Scotland of whom very excellent judges have reason 

 to speak in terms of high praise, and whose work is 

 far better than that of the wholesale heavily puffed 

 firms, trading under assumed London names, who 

 falsely profess to give you the same article as the good 

 itiakers at one-third of the price. 



A few words on this subject have not appeared to 

 me out of place in a chapter on grouse driving, since 

 it is precisely in this branch of sport that guns are 

 put to the most severe tests. The atmospheric con- 

 ditions, exposing the workmanship of your piece to 

 great extremes of heat, wet and cold, with the con- 

 comitant condition of very heavy firing, rapid working 

 of the mechanism, and maximum of expansion or con- 

 traction of the metal, try the workmanship of a gun 

 severely. A weapon which 'jams' in the middle of a 

 good grouse drive would spoil the temper of an arch- 

 angel. In the arrangement and conduct of your drives 



