ODDS AND ENDS 277 



first day, on some rented ground. There were 

 six guns and six loaders, keepers and beaters 

 innumerable, a pack of retrievers, several game 

 and lunch vans, and, of course, motors. I do not 

 think more than about twenty-five partridges came 

 in sight of the guns all day. Never did I get so 

 tired of a day, which mercifully was abandoned 

 before the usual time. The only part I enjoyed 

 was the lunch, of which there were three grades 

 the guns', the keepers' and loaders', and the beaters'. 

 So excellent were the chicken, ham, and jelly-coated 

 cutlets that I am ashamed to say I practically dis- 

 pensed with bread. 



Valets supply the very essence of shooting blase- 

 ness, and some of them are remarkable for a 

 wealth and facility of thunder and lightning speech. 

 Phonograph records of some of the conversations 

 between valets and keepers in the gun-room of a 

 large country-house would be quite enough to 

 make their employers' hair stand on end. Keepers 

 always are glad when a sportsman arrives in charge 

 of a valet if only for the fact that a valet prevents 

 the escape of cartridge-bags. I have known the 

 elusiveness of cartridge- bags to be the cause of 

 no end of bother. It all falls on the shoulders 

 of the keeper why, I never could imagine. Often 

 a keeper has not even heard of a man before, to 

 say nothing of his cartridge-bag. A man once 

 complained to me of the loss of his cartridge-bags, 



