78 MELTON AND HOMESPUN 



There is an ancient axiom which runs something as 

 follows : " Lend not your dog, gun, or wife to a friend " 

 — perchance I have misquoted, and the wife should be 

 given the place of honour among the trio. In such case 

 may I crave forgiveness from readers of the fair sex? 

 Now it seems to me a vast amount of wisdom and good 

 advice is embodied in that old saw. Be this as it may, 

 I for one would consider long and earnestly before lending 

 either one or the other to my very dearest friend even. 

 Setting aside both wife and gun, precious few sportsmen 

 with a true regard for their pointers, setters, retrievers, or 

 spaniels would hire out their dogs to strangers, I think. 



No two men handle a gun-dog precisely alike, and an 

 incalculable amount of harm may be done to a dog within 

 a very short space of time at the hands of a duffer. In 

 many cases the hired sporting dog will have travelled 

 a long distance by rail, and arrives at his destination 

 half scared to death with the unwonted noise and bustle 

 of the journey, besides being half famished from lack of 

 food and water. He is then taken in tow by a perfect 

 stranger — a lad, perchance, who regards an ash plant as 

 being the best and only true remedy for canine timidity, 

 and doses his charge liberally enough with the same — 

 and kennelled in surroundings which are absolutely 

 strange and new to him. Next day, in company with 

 others of his kind, who resent his presence as a stranger 

 and " rag " him accordingly, the unfortunate alien is 

 taken into the field, and great things are expected of 

 him by his new, albeit temporary, owner. The poor 

 creature's heart is with his old master, however, whose 

 voice and methods are so different to those of the new man, 

 who, by-the-bye, has scarcely bestowed a word upon him 



