MY DOGS AND OTHERS 249 



was particularly easy even to give them away. I 

 sold a flat-coated bitch puppy the pick of a litter 

 for five shillings to a man who soon afterwards was 

 offered four pounds for her. Another one I sold, 

 at ten weeks old, for three pounds to a man who 

 kept her for six weeks, and gave her back to me, 

 with a new collar, chain, and kennel, on his removal 

 to town. I thought I would keep her myself, and 

 began to teach her to walk to heel, to retrieve, 

 and to lie down and stay at any spot. One day a 

 sportsman with whom I had been doing a little 

 shooting had a look at my dogs, and asked me 

 if I had one to sell. I showed him the puppy, 

 then five months old ; told him all I knew about 

 her, and that she ought to be worth five pounds. 

 ' Oh, I'll give you that for her/ he said, before 

 I had time to tell him how much less I would 

 take. So I got altogether eight pounds for her, 

 and a new collar, chain, and kennel into the 

 bargain. Her purchaser told me a couple of 

 years afterwards what a treasure she had turned 

 out, and that he had refused an offer of twenty 

 pounds for her. The brother of this bitch I 

 intended to have kept permanently myself, but 

 when he was trained I found that his mother 

 would be able to manage the work, the breeding 

 season for partridges having turned out bad. He 

 was far too good to be put to general-purpose 

 work. A friend offered me ten pounds for him, 



