MY BROTHER KEEPERS air 
business purposes. It was the custom of these two 
worthy debaters to stable their ponies in special 
stalls. One day a rival keeper changed the ponies’ 
places ; and it is perhaps better to draw a veil over 
what happened when their respective wives found 
themselves welcoming somebody else’s husband. 
The extravagant keeper is not unknown. He 
has generally been nurtured on some big shooting 
estate where the employer's money was no object. 
But when he takes a single-handed place his ex- 
travagant ways quickly come to the surface; and 
probably it is not long before he is leaving ‘to 
better himself’ and—his employer. Very possibly 
he does not always know that he is extravagant ; 
others may discover this by many signs. There is 
the signal given by relays of new leather gaiters, of 
a particularly aggressive shade of brown-to-mustard- 
yellow, which he is much given to wearing. Then, 
again, he simply cannot resist emptying those piled 
sacks of golden maize. Even after the bulk of his 
pheasants are shot he must go on carpeting the rides 
with maize. For shooting-days he will engage the 
services of forty beaters when five-and-twenty would 
be ample. If he had to pay out of his own pocket 
for all these luxuries, he might discover in time that 
they were not indispensable. 
Some species of extravagant keepers possess a 
perfect mania for game, dog, and poultry medicines ; 
the weirder and higher-sounding their name, the 
14—2 
