HOW I BECAME A KEEPER 5 



execrable, I would feel well, how could I help 

 feeling otherwise ? Whatever may have been my 

 successes in other directions, from first to last I was 

 a hopeless failure at touching my cap, or my hair, 

 or my forehead, or whatever a keeper is supposed 

 to touch with that Jack-in-the-box movement of a 

 finger. Though I was scrupulously polite to those 

 who were my superiors for the time being, I confess 

 that I never tried very hard to master the finger 

 trick : it always seemed to me so suggestive of a 

 tip. A man must be prepared to ignore absolutely 

 his own friends and relations while on duty that is 

 to say, in the presence of his employer or his guests. 

 I made it an inflexible rule never to presume in any 

 way, or to take the least advantage of the thought that 

 in private life I was perhaps not greatly inferior to 

 those with whom I sometimes was brought into 

 official contact. 



The best start on the game-keeping road for a 

 man outside the ordinary recruiting ranks is a 

 course of instruction on a game-farm, because, 

 should he discover that, after all, he would rather 

 not pursue the attempt further, he can give it up, 

 and resume his former social position without let or 

 hindrance : he has been only a pupil on a game- 

 farm. But when once he has become a real keeper, 

 worn livery, and taken any tips he is so lucky as to 

 have offered him well, that might be another thing 

 altogether to those who fear the bunkers of con- 



