ckered. His chief petty annoyance was his want of skill as a
sportsman. He could never bring down game with his gun, and he was
passionately fond of shooting. On taking up his abode in the country,
the first thing he had made was a full hunting-suit in the most approved
fashion, and this costume he would wear upon all occasions, even when he
came up to Paris. He never attained any nearer approximation to a
sportsman's character. One day he went out shooting with a friend. A
flock of partridges rose at their feet.

"Fire, Murger! fire!" exclaimed his friend.

"Why, great heavens, man, I can't shoot so! Wait until they _light_ on
yon fence, and then I'll take a crack at them."

He could no better shoot at stationary objects, however, than at game on
the wing. Hard by his cottage a hare had burrowed in a potato-field.
Every morning and every evening Murger fired at the hare, but with such
little effect, that the hare soon took no notice either of Murger or his
gun, and gambolled before them both as if they were simply a scarecrow.
Murger bagged but one piece of game in the whole course of his life, and
the way this was done happened in this wise. One day he was asleep at
the foot of a tree in the Forest of Fontainebleau,--his gun by his side.
He was suddenly awakened by the barking of a dog which he knew belonged
to the most adroit poacher that levied illicit tribute on the imperial
domain. The dog continued to bark and to look steadily up into the tree.
Murger followed the dog's eyes, but could discover nothing. The poacher
ran up, saying,--"Quick, Monsieur Murger! quick! Give me your gun. Don't
you see it?"

Murger replied,--"See it? See what?"

"Why, a pheasant! a splendid cock! There he is on the top limb!"

The poacher aimed and fired; the pheasant fell at Murger's feet. "Take
the bird and put it in your game-bag, Monsieur Murger, and tell
everybody you killed it."

Murger gratefully accepted the present; and this was the first and only
time that Murger ever bagged a bird.

But the cloud which darkened his sky now was the cloud which had lowered
on all his life,--poverty. He was always fevered by the care and anxiety
of procuring money. Life is expensive to a man occupying such a position
as Murger filled, and French authors are ill paid. A French publisher
thinks he has done wonders, if he sells all the copies of an edition of
three thousand volumes; and if any work reaches a sale of sixteen or
seventeen tho