202 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
be. And you, T’other Gent, take off and get along- 
side o’ the beaters.’ Then, having walked down 
the line of guns, giving each in passing some final 
admonition, more often than not of an irrelevant 
nature, he would take up his stand at a convenient 
spot in the rear. If the beaters were some time 
coming on, he would postpone his soliloquy for 
a while; otherwise he began at once—after giving 
his dog an appreciable ‘reminder.’ Though he 
chiefly chose for his subject generalities concerning 
the beat, if a fox showed up he dealt with it 
promptly, somewhat after this fashion: ‘Cunning 
old beggar that! T’others wouldn’t be ’arf so bad 
if ’twarn’t for ’is learnin’ on ’em. Shan’t be sorry 
when ’e’s gone where the good niggers goes.’ 
A volley of ineffective shots at a pheasant of the 
‘corker’ type would be sure to bring forth a torrent 
of his sympathetic comment, much as follows: 
‘Now, ’e were a good un! Us can’t allus kill. 
Didn’t much think the likes o’ they would stop 
‘im. Don’t know as I could ’er done it myself. 
Wants Mister So-and-so for sich ones.’ As a 
beat proceeded, and shooting became more frequent, 
you could hear in the lulls of firing his comments— 
always made in trumpet tones—of a vividly topical 
nature. When IJ have been loading I have suffered 
terrible torture in wrestling with desire to laugh 
at his quaint, boldly expressed remarks. Once I 
collapsed utterly, and had to retire to the seclusion 
