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CHAPTER II 
“TOUJOURS PERDRIX ’—FORM GOOD AND BAD 
How well each one of us remembers his first par- 
tridge! I well remember mine. It was not the bird 
I aimed at ; I had been out many days without strik- 
ing a single bird with even an outside shot. I am 
afraid I at last got to shoot vaguely at the covey like 
Mr. Tupman—though not like him with my eyes 
shut ; and when this bird was finally retrieved—he 
was a strong runner—I felt more of shame than of 
pride.. I learnt under old Hirst, the keeper at 
Hawarden Castle, my first season, in the days of the 
kindly and accomplished Sir Stephen Glynne, and, 
.therefore,: before his brother-in-law, the great Mr. 
Gladstone, succeeded to the property. Very kind to 
me they both were, and whatever great questions of 
State may have possessed Mr. Gladstone’s time and 
brain at this period, for I confess I do not remember, 
he always had a genial word or two, and an enquiry 
how the sport fared when I came in at night. Old Hirst 
