250 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



and half the amount he fetched above that sum 

 after deducting expenses, if I would take the dog 

 to a London auction sale. There was present a 

 man who had bought a brace of the dog's blood 

 brothers and sisters, and he bought him for twenty 

 guineas the top price of sixty odd animals. I 

 felt anything but calm standing on that raised plat- 

 form with my dog, especially when the auctioneer 

 repeated, ' Nineteen guineas I'm bid,' and made 

 ready his hammer. 



Another time, a man had agreed to buy a ten- 

 weeks-old retriever puppy for fifty shillings. The 

 day before I was to send the puppy off I washed 

 him, and gave him to an under- keeper to take 

 for a run. Before going indoors to have his 

 dinner, the man tied the puppy to a hurdle-fence. 

 When he came out the puppy was hanging dead 

 the other side. In tying a dog to a fence of any 

 sort there is always a risk of his hanging himself. 

 I went to see a keeper, hoping to buy from him. 

 one of two little black spaniels which I heard he 

 had left out of a litter. I asked the price, and he 

 said he did not think a pound too much for the 

 two. I agreed with him, and went home with 

 the two puppies and sixpence left in my pocket. 

 The same day I met another keeper, to whom I 

 sold one of them for the same price as I gave for 

 it. Not long afterwards he told me it had fetched 

 ten guineas. I gave a middle-aged retriever that 



