CHAPTER XIII 



MY BROTHER KEEPERS 



Varieties of keeper The backbiting keeper * Previous to a cold ' 

 The privileged keeper The diplomatic keeper Stock phrases 

 Keepers as sportsmen The jealousy of keepers The extrava- 

 gant keeper The exaggerating keeper The ' some ' birds 

 keeper. 



I BEGIN with the man who has followed the occupa- 

 tion of game-keeping all his life in some cases 

 even } to the exclusion of learning to read and write. 

 It has always rather amused me to watch the 

 manner in which such men seize every chance to 

 emphasize the fact that their brothers who have not 

 actually spent every moment of their lives as game- 

 keepers are not as they. Take the case of a man 

 who, as a boy, did a little boot-cleaning. When in 

 after years he is cursed with enteritis on the rearing- 

 field, while a lifelong keeper is lucky enough to 

 have no such calamity, the latter will glory in 

 running down the former, on every possible occasion, 

 all because he has added the art of game-keeping to 

 the accomplishment of boot-cleaning. * Why, yer 

 can't expect no otherwise. What do 'e know about 

 rearing ? Mixin' blackin's more in 'is line than 



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