MY BROTHER KEEPERS 197 
mixin’ birds’ grub. No wonder they dies! ’E’ll lose 
the lot afore ’e’s done.’ This is the sort of running 
fire that goes on, especially dehznd the former boot- 
cleaner’s back. 
Such talk to the gallery may sound very fine. 
The colour of the speaker’s words may afford 
temporary amusement to those who laugh. But the 
keeper who uses every chance to belittle the ability 
of others might do well to reflect that he is making 
for himself the impossible standard of perpetual 
success. Into the pit where he is always trying to 
push others he will finally fall, and there he will 
stay. When a man is constantly running down 
others in his profession, there is every possibility of 
holes in his own jacket. All his attempts to slander 
really cause those who are fair judges to appreciate 
more fully the good points of the slandered. After 
growing tired of hearing a very indifferent lifelong 
keeper run down another who had started to earn 
his living as a groom, I remember taking a step 
which quenched the slandering habit for ever after- 
wards. It was in the summer of 1907, and in the 
district in question I do not think there was one 
day during the breeding season when the weather 
was even decent for game, young or old—nothing 
but mist, rain, and cold day and night. The one- 
time groom-keeper took about four hundred birds 
on to the field, and brought off a very creditable 
proportion. When the earlier ones were five weeks 
