212 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
greater the attraction. I knew one who so firmly 
believed in anything of which he did not know the 
constituents that he used to take a dose himself 
whenever he felt queer—which was often, and small 
wonder. He even tried to induce me to have a 
dose of one of his unknown quantities. When his 
birds showed no signs of anything except good 
health, he very soon persuaded himself that they 
had got a touch of something. And off went an 
order for a bottle of the preparation of his fancy. 
I must not forget to mention the exaggerating, 
boasting, and lying keeper—unfortunately he, too, 
is not unknown. Towards the end of a September 
following one of those disastrous partridge-breeding 
seasons, the very memory of which is as the vilest 
nightmare, I met the keeper of a neighbouring place, 
and asked him how he had fared, knowing that he 
had recently managed a three-days’ shoot. I sug- 
gested that the overwhelming rain of June might 
have destroyed his partridges. Not a bit of it; 
his total for the three days was three hundred brace 
—a very fine record for the locality in the best of 
seasons. Thoroughly interested, I hinted that one 
of the three days might have resulted in a bag of a 
hundred brace. ‘Oh yes,’ he replied, in his hurry 
to tell another boasting lie; ‘why, by Jove! we got 
pretty near fifty brace the best day. Three hundred 
brace, 1 tells ye, my lad, in the three days!’ I 
craved enlightenment of this wonderful man as to 
