TYPES OF SHOOTERS 185 



having kept the keeper waiting, instead of allowing 

 him to go straight on with the beaters to the next 

 beat or drive. He refuses to allow the keeper to show 

 the guns to their places, forgets where to put them 

 himself, makes a hopeless hash of a good beat, and 

 than calmly tells the keeper that he understood him 

 to say so-and-so. 



The keeper cannot help feeling a bit of a fool on 

 discovering, when too late, that the guns have been 

 wrongly placed. Talking very often accounts for 

 guns being placed so that they cannot cover a beat 

 to the best advantage. The host and a guest 

 begin to discuss some subject, and perhaps each 

 forgets the business in hand, or the one may not 

 like to cut the other short. Suddenly it is discovered 

 that someone ought to have stopped a hundred 

 yards farther back, or half the guns find themselves 

 in a cluster at the end of the beat. Then it is a case 

 of, ' Oh, very well ; it does not matter now. Stay 

 where you are/ No wonder partridges ome wide 

 or pheasants run between the guns. 



Some guns apparently are born late. But if it is 

 rude to be late for a dinner-party, surely it is rude 

 to be late for a shoot. At a dinner the late guest is 

 the chief sufferer, because he must eat warmed-up 

 food or go without. At a shoot the host and his 

 punctual guests, the keeper, the bag, and the success 

 of the day, all must suffer. A wait of half an hour 

 at the start means that the proceedings throughout 



