100 The Carntvora. 
direction with astonishing accuracy. With the glass at my 
eye I see him, as I think, pass the spot. He goes slowly 
now, hesitates, retraces his steps some yards, and casts down 
wind to get the scent, but without success. A wider cast 
still, and up goes his flag. A few moments’ steady quartering 
of the ground, and he has the bird in his mouth, and it is 
not long before he delivers it proudly into my hand. Great 
as the distance was—at least a quarter of a mile—he had 
marked his bird down within a circle of not more than forty 
yards diameter, to the best of my judgment, and moreover, 
went to work with a confidence my own assisted sight did 
not enable me to share. 
Spoilt minion of fashion; thou of the battue and the 
drive, and the second gun ready to be handed by the 
keeper, as the long tails come rocketing out of cover by 
the dozen; believe me, that was worth the hecatombs of 
slaughter, the champagne lunch—and—but that would be 
rank treason—I was going to add, the plaudits of the fair 
come out in wagonettes to view the goodly rows of bur- 
nished plumaged pheasants ranged on the grass, while the 
tired beaters stand humbly at the corner of the wood 
expectant of broken meat. Spoilt minion—I am still apostro- 
phising thee—where are the dogs? or, rather, where is 
thy dog, thy trusty companion, if thou hast one, and what 
part or lot has he borne in this pheasant-killing-by-machinery 
business? After the din, after the triumph and the vanity, 
after the rapture, such as it is, of having killed the largest 
head of game to your own gun; after the excitement, and 
the risk of being shot dead through the back by some 
irresponsible booby who trained his “’prentice hand” at a 
pigeon match—the manliest thing you have done to-day was 
to refrain from flinching when his gun belched out its 
contents at that bird rising straight between you—after 
all this what is there left? There are the slain, it is true, 
to your account; there is the envy of the party, and there 
is the certainty that my Lord Tom Noddy will invite you 
