h nature's spurs more cruel than
when matched by man and heeled with steel or even silver, which
mercifully ends the combat in short order? And so I tell my wife, Sir
Peter, but she calls me brute," he panted plaintively.

"Pooh!" said Sir Peter, laughing, "I can always find a reason for any
transgression in the list from theft to murder, and justify each crime
by logic--if I put my mind to do so. But my mind is not partial to
logic. I fight game-fowl and like it, be the fashion and the ethics
what they may."

He was unjust to himself as usual; to him there was no difference
between the death of a pheasant afield and the taking off of a good
bird in the pit.

Seated around the pit, there was some delay in showing, and Dr. Carmody
of the brigade staff gave me, unsolicited, his mature opinions upon
game-fowl:

"Show me a bird of bold carriage, comb bright red and upright, eye full
and bright, beak strong and in good socket, breast full, body broad at
shoulder and tapering to tail, thigh short, round, and hard as a nail,
leg stout, flat-footed, and spur low--a bird with bright, hard
feathers, strong in a quill, warm and firm to the hand--and I care not
what breed he be, spangle or black-red, I'll lay my last farthing with
you, Mr. Renault, if it shall please you."

"And what am I to back?" said I, laughing--"a full plume, a long, soft
hackle, a squirrel-tail, a long-thighed, in-kneed, weak-beaked,
coarse-headed henning-fowl selected by you?"

The little doctor roared with laughter; the buzz and hum of
conversation increased around us--bits of banter, jests tossed from
friend to friend.

"Who dubs your birds for you. Sir Peter?" cried Helsing--"the Bridewell
barber?"

"Ten guineas to eight with you on the first battle," retorted Sir
Peter, courteously; and, "Done with you, sir!" said Helsing, noting the
bet, while Sir Peter booked his memorandum and turned to meet a perfect
shower of offers, all of which he accepted smilingly. And I--oh, I was
sick to sit there without a penny laid to show my loyalty to Sir Peter.
But it must be so, and I bit my lip and strove to smile and parry with
a jest the well-meant offers which now and then came flying my way. But
O'Neil and Harkness backed the Flatbush birds right loyally, cautioned
by Sir Peter, who begged that they wait; but they would not--and one
was Irish--so nothing would do but a bold front and an officer snapped
with, "Done, sir!"

The judges and the referee had