LAYING AND BACKING 



top of the rail and into the sea instead of dropping on 

 the right side. I had killed eRven out of twelve, and 

 with any ordinary luck I should have had the twelfth. 

 It may be remembered that the winner was Pellier 

 Johnston with nineteen birds straight, Mackintosh 

 being second with eighteen out of nineteen, two 

 others tying for the third place with seventeen out 

 of eighteen ; then several of us were level with eleven 

 out of twelve. 



I was shooting with a gun I had bought for two 

 hundred pounds in Bond Street, London, and my 

 success spoke well for the cartridges made by the 

 Coopal Company of Belgium. 



There were other bits of money picked up that 

 season by shooting at Monte Carlo. Thiebaux was the 

 biggest layer, and I suppose George Cooper of the 

 English division made some of the biggest bets. 

 Charlie Hannam mixed it, some days laying and other 

 days backing. I should like to have all the money 

 which he has lost over pigeon-shooting in one way and 

 the other ; still, it is all part of his winter holiday so I 

 suppose he doesn't mind ! 



Various little things annoyed me that winter, but it 

 was very likely because I was over-sensitive after what 

 had occurred in England. 



Certainly the English lot were very nice and sym- 

 pathetic but many of the Frenchmen and Italians 

 seemed to go on the lines that I hadn't received my 

 licence from the English Jockey Club, and although 

 they were outwardly polite they were inclined to be 

 snubby. If I had the money to go in it wasn't their 

 business of course, for by this time I wasn't a jockey 

 but a private citizen with a certain reserve of assets, 

 and in any case I was not a professional pigeon-shot 

 as many of those were to whom the French and 

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