MY BROTHER KEEPERS 197 



mixin' birds' grub. No wonder they dies ! 'E'll lose 

 the lot afore 'e's done.' This is the sort of running 

 fire that goes on, especially behind the former boot- 

 cleaner's back. 



Such talk to the gallery may sound very fine. 

 The colour of the speaker's words may afford 

 temporary amusement to those who laugh. But the 

 keeper who uses every chance to belittle the ability 

 of others might do well to reflect that he is making 

 for himself the impossible standard of perpetual 

 success. Into the pit where he is always trying to 

 push others he will finally fall, and there he will 

 stay. When a man is constantly running down 

 others in his profession, there is every possibility of 

 holes in his own jacket. All his attempts to slander 

 really cause those who are fair judges to appreciate 

 more fully the good points of the slandered. After 

 growing tired of hearing a very indifferent lifelong 

 keeper run down another who had started to earn 

 his living as a groom, I remember taking a step 

 which quenched the slandering habit for ever after- 

 wards. It was in the summer of 1907, and in the 

 district in question I do not think there was one 

 day during the breeding season when the weather 

 was even decent for game, young or old nothing 

 but mist, rain, and cold day and night. The one- 

 time groom-keeper took about four hundred birds 

 on to the field, and brought off a very creditable 

 proportion. When the earlier ones were five weeks 



