136 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
veins to fever pitch, and I have gone to my comfortable 
bedroom feeling that life was really worth living. 
- This is, no doubt, good living ; but it will not mean 
good shooting next day. After an almost sleepless 
night breakfast will revolt your feverish eye, and the 
hurried start still further discompose your turgid 
brain and congested liver. The simplest partridge 
will defeat you, and though you may kill a proportion 
of birds from knowledge, you will achieve nothing 
from form, whilst even Schultz or E.C. may not save 
you from that peculiar class of ‘head’ which feels 
after each shot like the opening and shutting of a 
heavy book charged with electricity. This miserable 
state of things always reminds me of the burly vendor 
of hot potatoes in Leech’s inimitable drawing, who 
thus to the small boy in the big muffler on the pave- 
ment holding his ‘tummy’ with both hands, ‘Made 
yer ill, ave they? Ah, that’s ’cos yer aint accustomed 
to ’igh livin’.’ 
Well, you may or may not be accustomed to ’igh 
livin’, but high living and high birds never did go to- 
gether, and unless you cut down the one you will never 
bring down the other. Change of air and excitement, 
the latter probably a much more frequent condition 
of your mind than you are inclined to suppose or pre- 
pared to admit, will upset any one; but a very little 
