he leaks
for the wind--the cold bedrooms, the cold stone floors--B-r-r-h-h!"

Tanrade straightened back in his chair: "No," said he, "it is
impossible; Baviere can not wait. He must have his score. The rehearsals
have been delayed long enough as it is--Go, _mon vieux_, and good luck
to you!"

Again the old garcon entered, this time with the timetable I had sent
him for in a hurry.

"_Voila_, monsieur!" he began excitedly, his thumbnail indicating the
line--"the 12.18, as monsieur sees, is an express--monsieur will not
have to change at Lisieux."

"_Bon!_" I cried--"quick--a taxi-auto."

"_Bien_, monsieur--a good hunt to monsieur," and he rushed out into the
narrow corridor and down the spiral stairs while I hurried into my coat
and hat.

Tanrade gripped my hand:

"Shoot straight!" he counselled with a smile. Alice gave me her cheek,
which I reverently kissed and murmured my apologies for my insistence in
her small ear. Then I swung open the door and made for the spiral
stairs. At the bottom step I stopped short. I had completely forgotten I
should not return until after New Year's, and I rushed back to wish
them a _Bonne Annee_ in advance, but I closed the door of the stuffy
little _cabinet particulier_ quicker than I opened it, for her arms were
about the sturdy neck of a good comrade whose self-denial made me feel
like the mad infant rushing to the fete.

"_Bonne Annee, mes enfants!_" I called from the corridor, but they did
not hear.

Ten minutes later I reached my studio, dumped three hundred cartridges
into a worn valise and caught the 12.18 with four minutes to spare.

* * * * *

_Enfin!_ it is winter in earnest!

The northeast gale gave, while it lasted, the best shooting the cure and
I have ever had. Then the wind shifted to the southwest with a falling
barometer, and the flights ceased. Again, for three days, the Norman
coast has been thrashed by squalls of driving snow. The wild geese are
honking in V-shaped lines to an inland refuge for the white sea is no
longer tenable. Curlews cry hoarsely over the frozen fields. It is
tough enough lying hidden in my sand pit on the open beach beyond the
dunes, where I crack away at the ricketing flights of fat gray plover
and beat myself to keep warm. Fuel is scarce and there is hardly a sou
to be earned fishing in such cruel weather as this.

The country back of my house abandoned by the marsh is now stripped to
bare actua