THE MASTER'S EXPENSES 95 



the new regime. An enormous claim is nowadays sent 

 in by every poultry-farmer who is too ignorant or too 

 lazy to protect his caged-up fowls with high wire 

 fencing topped by a couple of strands of barbed 

 wire, which finds its legitimate use in this protection 

 of live animals of the farmyard. Very few foxes will 

 jump barbed wire ; not one, it is safe to say, will do 

 so if it has once had a fall over it ; and such a barrier 

 will also keep out the two-legged thief for whose mis- 

 demeanours the poor maligned fox is not seldom made 

 the scapegoat. 



Well, the immense claim is duly sent in, and it then 

 has to be minutely investigated by a committee specially 

 appointed for the purpose of paring such demands down 

 to their lowest terms. The whole negotiations usually 

 terminate in an undignified wrangle, with the result that 

 either the committee is compelled to pay up in full or 

 else the Master has personally to intervene. The latter 

 alternative is, particularly where the Master is a native 

 of the country, distinctly preferable, for no matter how 

 indefatigably the secretary labour in the performance 

 of his difficult duties, it is the Master who generally 

 possesses the happy knack of being able to smooth 

 over such differences as may arise within his juris- 

 diction. Such, at any rate, was my experience in con- 

 nection with the Hunt of which I was successively 

 Master and Secretary. 



The tactful handling of a cantankerous shooting- 

 tenant is particularly the Master's job, and he must 

 have very special qualifications if he is to undertake 

 many such adjustments of obviously conflicting 



