i6o How I Became a Sportsman. 



ations), new-laid eggs, and home-cured ham, 

 what more could sportsman want ? It is a 

 breakfast fit for an emperor, if only such 

 pampered patrician appetite could venture on 

 such plebeian fare. And then for dinner, trout 

 again, if you like, a well-hung joint of real 

 Dartmoor mutton, done to a turn, a small 

 saddle for choice, followed by a fresh-killed 

 snipe (both snipe and woodcock are better 

 for being cooked fresh, the trail gets dried up 

 by keeping) on toast, the whole supplemented 

 by good, wholesome, home-brewed beer, and 

 topped up with one or at most two glasses 

 of good old whiskey and water cold, and 

 without sugar. Not a drop more, my dear 

 reader, not a drop, though it is very nice. 

 What more could mortal man possibly desire ? 

 Man wants but little here below, but requires 

 that little to be very good of its kind. That 

 is the great secret ; it is not signifying much 

 what you eat or drink. Then if you should 

 be a smoker, tone the whole down with your 

 favourite weed, whether in the bowl of a pipe 

 or cigar ; the former I have preferred for many 

 years. The more simple a man's tastes the 

 more easily they are gratified, and the more 



