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200 did not catch; and I, perceiving that this object lesson of kindness to animals from an Oriental had strongly affected all the shooters, patted the hound on the forehead, consoling him with some chocolate I carried in my cartridge sack.

We picnicked our lunch under a stone wall, and I, becoming an hilarious, rallied my companions unmercifully upon the solemnity with which they had marched in cautious silence, and with stern countenances as to attack some formidable foe—and all to slaughter sundry braces of inoffensive grouse-birds—truly an heroical sort of undertaking!

To which Hon'ble replied, with his utterance impeded by cold pie, that I might congratulate myself on having kept my own hands unstained by any grouse's gore.

"True, Mister Ex-Judge," I retorted, "but as you have already testified" (here I hoisted his own petard at him rather ingeniously), "I am more an au fait in the extermination of elephants et hoc genus omne, and have hitherto reserved my powder and shot for a stag or some similar monarch of the glen. However, after lunch let us see whether I am not competent to kill, or at least maim, one of these same grouse-fowls, faute de mieux!" A repartee which excited uproarious laughter (at Hon'ble C.'s expense) from all the present company.