The only thing that distressed me in our shooting excursions was, that my master would sometimes allow very indifferent sportsmen to accompany us. I whined, grumbled, and remonstrated with him to the best of my power when I heard him give an invitation to some awkward booby who scarcely knew how to hold his gun, but it was all in vain; my master's only fault was his not consulting my judgment sufficiently in the choice of his acquaintances, and many a bad day's sport we had in consequence. Once my patience was tired beyond what any clever dog could be expected to bear. A young gentleman had arrived at our house whom my master and mistress treated much better than I thought he deserved. At the first glance I penetrated into his state of mind, and should have liked to hear my master growl, and my mistress bark at him; instead of which they said they were glad to see him, and hoped he had had a pleasant journey. He immediately began a long string of complaints, blaming everything he mentioned. He was cold; there never was such weather for the time of year; he was tired; the roads were bad, the country dull, he had been obliged to come the last twenty miles cramped up inside a coach. Such a shame that the railroad did not go the whole way! He was very glad to get to his journey's end, but it seemed to be more for the sake of his own comfort than for the pleasure of seeing his friends. His troubles had not hurt his appetite, as I plainly perceived, for I peeped into the room several times during dinner to watch him, and listen to his conversation. It was all in the same style, some fault to be found with everything. Even Lily could not put him in good humour, though she seemed to be trying to talk about everything likely to please him. After the failure of various attempts to find a fortunate topic, she asked if he had had much shooting this season. "Plenty of it," he answered; "only so bad. My brother's dogs are wretched. There is no doing any thing with such brutes." Lily coloured a little, and said that she thought Rodolph's dogs beautiful, and that it was very unlike him to have any thing wretched belonging to him. "Oh," replied the other, "he is the greenest fellow in the world. He is always satisfied. I assure you his dogs are good for nothing. I did not bring down a single bird any time I went out with them." "Well," said my master, "I hope we shall be able to make amends for that misfortune. To-morrow you shall go out with the best dog in the country." I whined, for I knew he meant me; and I did not like the idea of a sportsman who began by finding fault with his dogs. I suspected that the _dogs_ were not to blame. But nobody listened to me. Next day, while Lily and I were playing in the garden, my master appeared at the usual time in his shooting-jacket. "Where is Craven?" he inquired of Lily; "I told him to be ready."