ean moments of unscientific
impatience, sudden unworthy impulses to kill him and get rid of
the job. Unscientific, unworthy--unsportsmanlike--to kill your
priceless fish before he has even felt the hook!

"The second bad moment I overcame (I am proud to report) of my
own strength of will. It happened at a bend of the Corniche,
when our driver pulled up on the edge of a really nasty
precipice and invited us to admire the view. It being the hour
for _dejeuner_, we haled our basket out of the carriage, and
spread our meal on the parapet. Farrell sat perched there with
his back to the sea, and made unpleasant noises, gnawing at a
chicken-bone. I wanted to see how he'd fall backwards and watch
him strike the beach. . . .

"Well, I was glad when the impulse was conquered and I had proved
my self-control: because the previous temptation had been a
close call, and I believe it would have bowled me out but for a
special interposition of--Providence.

"We were following up a path in the Esterel: a little gorge of a
path cut by some torrent long since dried. The track had steep
sides--fifteen to twenty feet--right and left, and was so narrow
that we took it single file. I was leading.

"Now, on our way westward out of Cannes, that morning, we had
passed the golf-links, and Farrell had been talking golf ever
since. I don't know why golf-talk should have such power to
infuriate those who despise that game. But so it is, Roddy.

"I had the weapon in my pocket. I had my fingers on it as I
trudged along, and was saying to myself, 'Why not here? In the
name of common sense, why not here? Why not here and now?'--
when a leveret, that had somehow bungled its footing on the high
bank above, came tumbling down, not three yards ahead of us.
The poor little brute picked itself up, half-stunned, caught
sight of us, and made a bolt up the path ahead. From this side
to that it darted, trying to climb and escape; but again and
again the bank beat it, and from each spring it toppled back;
and we followed relentlessly.

"At the end of two hundred yards it gave in. It just lay down in
the path like a thing already dead and waited for what we should
choose to do.

"I picked it up. I showed it to Farrell, keeping my fingers on
the faint little