MY DOGS AND OTHERS 249 
was particularly easy even to give them away. I 
sold a flat-coated bitch puppy—the pick of a litter— 
for five shillings to a man who soon afterwards was 
offered four pounds for her. Another one I sold, 
at ten weeks old, for three pounds to a man who 
kept her for six weeks, and gave her back to me, 
with a new collar, chain, and kennel, on his removal 
to town. I thought I would keep her myself, and 
began to teach her to walk to heel, to retrieve, 
and to lie down and stay at any spot. One daya 
sportsman with whom I had been doing a little 
shooting had a look at my dogs, and asked me 
if I had one to sell. I showed him the puppy, 
then five months old; told him all I knew about 
her, and that she ought to be worth five pounds. 
‘Oh, I'll give you that for her,’ he said, before 
I had time to tell him how much less I would 
take. So I got altogether eight pounds for her, 
and a new collar, chain, and kennel into the 
bargain. Her purchaser told me a couple of 
years afterwards what a treasure she had turned 
out, and that he had refused an offer of twenty 
pounds for her. The brother of this bitch I 
intended to have kept permanently myself, but 
when he was trained I found that his mother 
would be able to manage the work, the breeding 
season for partridges having turned out bad. He 
was far too good to be put to general-purpose 
work. A friend offered me ten pounds for him, 
