MY BROTHER KEEPERS 205 
of retaining all captured rabbits failed to have any 
marked effect on the number of victims. Finally, 
our hero’s turn came. Even he could not succeed ; 
though if soliloquizing had been the object, he would 
have been the very man. But he did this: at 
certain holes he made, as it were, a troubling of the 
ground, as if a rabbit had been trapped. And the 
cry went up from the fevered lips of his employer, 
‘ This is the man to catch rabbits!’ From that time 
forth our hero was clothed in the purple of his craft. 
Many keepers have I known to become famous 
for their stock phrases, if for no other reason. 
There was one who generally had a retriever bitch 
with him; and when he wished to stimulate her 
efforts to find wounded game, he would exclaim at 
intervals, ‘Good dawg—old bitch? This drollery 
never failed to arouse the appreciation of the beaters. 
Everyone would make a point of enquiring of this 
old fellow, on every reasonable occasion, after his 
wife’s health, for the sake of hearing his unfailing 
reply, ‘Oh, she’s sharpish, thank ’ee.’ Again, what- 
ever you told him—whether something quite obvious 
or something quite new to him—would always be 
received with, ‘I knawed it. Ah! / knawed it.’ 
Though keepers, in their contact with strangers, 
are men of few words, not easily dragged into con- 
versation, and almost aggressively suspicious—let 
two or more keepers meet, and their tongues are very 
speedily loosened, making it difficult to believe they 
