"Yes; but you don't suppose that a boar will allow himself to be killed as easily as a squirrel. I fear, in spite of all your professions, you will find it not so agreeable a sport as shooting larks on the plain of St. Denis. The bristly fellow who comes trotting and grunting towards you, showing his teeth, stopping occasionally to sharpen them against the root of some old oak, is not generally in the best of humours; but you can, at any rate, reckon upon the great advantage,--the want of which you deprecate in partridge-shooting. For instance, you cannot fail to see him; you have notice of his coming; you are not taken off your guard, and they very seldom appear but one at a time. It is a combat face to face, and his, with two long prominent teeth, so unfortunate in a woman, and positively hideous in a boar, effectually warns you that it is well you should be prepared to receive him. But the excitement is grand; after the volley every one is at him with his knife, and, with the exception of a few inexperienced dogs, and a Parisian novice like yourself, who, of course, are occasionally put _hors de combat_, the affair ends gloriously. Yes, yes, I am beginning to think you are right, Adolphe; partridge-shooting and knocking over a timid hare is very cowardly sport." The _traqueurs_ also, whom Adolphe catechised, in the hope of preserving his own skin entire at the same time, though they gave him all sorts of good advice, failed not to add to it, as people of their class generally do, a budget of most fearful histories and hair-breadth escapes--of horses and dogs ripped open, and men killed or gored; but that which put a finishing-stroke to Adolphe's courage, was the entrance of a friend of mine, who had himself been a sad sufferer in one of these adventures. Wounded, but not mortally, the boar had charged him before he could reload, tearing up with his tusk the inside of his thigh; and, as he lay insensible on the ground, gnawing one of his calves off before any one could come to his assistance. During the next two months death shook him by the hand in vain, for he had fortunately an excellent constitution; "And, though the proportions of his left leg," whispered I, "have been restored by a slice out of a friendly cork-tree, he is, as you see, quite recovered." "True enough!" said the new arrival, who had overheard the concluding remark, "and if you have any doubts, Sir, I will show you my leg;" but Adolphe, thoroughly convinced, declined the offer, and retired to his room for the night.