302 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
Game-keeping is by no means a short-cut to 
fortune. People are apt to think that because a 
keeper may eat free rabbits, most of his bobs-a-week 
are clear profit. But even a keeper cannot live on 
rabbits and fresh air alone, to say nothing of his wife 
and the usual little keepers. There are, of course, 
‘plummy’ keepering berths, But the ordinary 
keeper does all that honest income will allow if he 
manages to maintain a wife and family respectably, 
pay into a club, and have a glass of beer for supper. 
I began at fifteen shillings a week, and ended at 
twenty-two; in addition, I had a free cottage and 
garden, four tons of coal, and some small firewood, 
and one suit of clothes each year; and probably I 
averaged rather under than over ten pounds yearly 
in tips, with perhaps fifty shillings in hunting fees. 
Many keepers nowadays lose their berths through 
no fault of their own, owing to so much shooting 
being let and frequently changing hands. Lucky 
indeed is the keeper who can save enough to retire 
on ; and to retire means, as a rule, to take a public- 
house. 
Depend upon it, there is nothing like an experience 
as a working keeper to give a man an appetite and 
rheumatism. 
