188 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
front; its height was improving rapidly. I was 
just contemplating the addition of another laurel- 
leaf to the crown of youthful success, when from the 
corner of my eye I saw the man on my right put up 
his gun. I hesitated. He fired and killed the cock 
—a bird which by no stretch of imagination could 
have been called anyone’s but mine. I said nothing. 
If I had said a tenth of what I felt, I should have 
said a lot. Just as we were about to sit down to 
lunch, my bird-grabber hinted at a pompous, con- 
descending regret that he had shot the pheasant—I 
suppose really with the intent to draw public attention 
to his own prowess. In as humble a tone as I could 
manage, I said: ‘Don’t mention it. Seeing that you 
were about to shoot, I thought it as well to wait in 
reserve.’ 
The perfumed shooter is not unknown to the 
keeper. Once so heavily was a shooter scented that 
I was driven to make excuse for alleged deficiency 
of my retriever’s nose, confiding to another sports 
man that so long as the perfume-wafter was in the 
wind my dog had no chance. The shooter who 
is everlastingly winging birds, either because he is 
a bad shot or a good one much given to firing 
long shots, is a perfect pest when walking up 
partridges. When the host happens to be a 
shooter of this description, the keeper and his 
dog have a particularly bad time. However well 
birds have been marked, they are not to be 
