rting yourself much, so far as I have seen, up to now.

_B-lf-r._ My dear fellow, you have yet to learn that hurry is not pace,
and that fuss is not business.

_S-l-sb-ry._ Well, boys, don't squabble, but lunch. We've _all_ done
pretty badly, up to now, and unless we do better before
sundown,----[_Sighs and sips._

_Sm-th (sorrowfully)._ Yes, that's very true. [_Sips and sighs._

_B-lf-r._ Well, I'm glad it's lunch-time anyhow, for I'm fairly baked.

_Sm-th._ Nip of Irish, B.?

_B-lf-r._ Irish be--_proclaimed_! Sick of the very name of Irish. _Do_
let's forget it for awhile, and hand me the J. J., there's a good
fellow.

_S-l-sb-ry (musing)._ Humph! Pretty pair of Sportsmen! Empty rotundity,
and linked languor long drawn out. Wonder what DIZZY would have thought
of such a pair of guns, especially of "his successor." _Tracy Tupman_
emulating _Mr. Winkle_.

_Sm-th._ Eh? What? Beg pardon, S-L-SB-RY, I'm _not_ forty-winking.

_S-l-sb-ry._ Not at all, not at all. I was--ahem!--saying what a
_Winkle_--ah--M-TTH-WS is!

_B-lf-r (disgustedly)._ Oh, M-TTH-WS! Missed every bird he's tried at.
Pity all burglars are not as bad shots as he. Couldn't hit a constable
at ten yards.

_S-l-sb-ry (drily)._ Not if he _tried_. I never feel safe at twenty. If
he hasn't peppered us all round, it isn't _his_ fault.

_Sm-th._ And--ahem--G-SCH-N hasn't turned out _quite_ the success we
expected, eh? That last miss of his was rather a bad one.

_S-l-sb-ry._ Humph! perhaps. Still, I wish he'd brought one or two of
his friends with him.

_B-lf-r._ Well, perhaps they'll join us later on.

_S-l-sb-ry (aside)._ I _hope_ so. Not much prospect of a decent bag if
they don't, I fear. Fact is, my party this year's a failure. Scarcely a
good gun among them. Finest and largest shooting-ground we've had for
years, and _yet_ we can't make a bag. Adjoining Moor supposed to be an
absolute failure, and yet the party who've taken it--on most Liberal
terms I hear, and with little hope of good sport--are picking up birds
like fun. Pop, pop, pop, pop! and every bang a bird. Old G. getting
quite cock-a-whoop about it. Fancies he'll top us at the end of the
shoot. Quite wrong, of course. Now that, at last, we've really dropped
upon that rascally gang of Irish poachers who had leagued themselves
together to play the mischief with our Moor, I guess we shall astonish
G.'s party a trifle. _They_ wink at the poaching Paddies. Most
unsportsmanlike conduct