"'Line up, Trombone!' shouted the keeper--I heard his stentorian roar above the din--'Come, hurry along with the Bombardon; Ophicleide, you're too far in front. Keep it going, Clarinets. Now then, all together! What are you up to, Cymbals? Let 'em have it!' And thus they came banging and booming and blowing through the covert. The bassoon tripped into a thorn-bush, the big-drum rolled over the trunk of a tree and smashed his instrument, the hautboy threw his at an escaping rabbit, while the flute-man walked straight into a pool of water, and had to be pulled out by the triangle. But the rest of them got through somehow with that infernal idiot of a conducting keeper, still backing and twisting and waving like mad in the front. That was WHICHELLO'S idea of beating his coverts. 'Combining aesthetic pleasure with sporting pursuits,' he called it. Somehow we had managed to bring down a brace of pheasants, which, with three rabbits, made up our total, out of a covert which ought to have yielded ten times as many. "I daresay you won't believe this story, but it's true all the same. If you don't believe it, write to WHICHELLO himself. I never saw anyone half so pleased as that fool was. He had given up all his time to teaching his rustics music, with a view to this performance, and had shoved in, as one of his keepers, a sporting third violin from the Drury Lane orchestra. They said it was glorious, and congratulated one another all round, with as much enthusiasm as if they'd repelled a foreign invasion. On the next beat they played the _March in Scipio_, and after that came a _Pot-Pourri of Popular Melodies_, arranged by the keeper. They played a selection from _The Pirates of Penzance_ while we lunched, and took the big wood to the tunes of '_Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay_' and '_Up-rouse ye then, my merry, merry Men!_' '_Rule Britannia_' and '_Home, Sweet Home_,' played us back to the house. I never heard such a confounded Babel of brass and wood in all my life. A German band in a country town couldn't come near it. Curiously enough, we most of us got urgent letters by next morning's post, summoning us home at once to attend to business, or to be present at the death-beds of relatives. I thought you'd like to hear this story, old cock. If you like, you're very welcome to shove it in your shooting series. I've seen a lot of rum goes in my life, but this was the rummest of the lot. And don't forget to let me have a word or two about talking to one's host. I know what I thought of that maniac WHICHELLO, but I shouldn't have liked to say that to him. "Yours to a turn, A SPORTSMAN." For the present I must leave this striking letter to the judgment of my readers. Space fails me to deal with it adequately. On another occasion I may be able to set down some ideas on the difficult subject suggested by my polite Correspondent. * * * * *