_S. P._ Yes, and the Anti-Shootin' League and the claptrap against the Lords. It's very depressin'. However, with a sportin' Government in, things will be lookin' up. _F. P._ Takes time, my feathered one, takes time. Why, they're still sittin' with the season just comin' on. Hear it's doocid dull in town, too, with the pavin' up in the Mall and all that. _S. P._ Where do you get the club talk from, old rooster? _F. P._ Bird I know keepin' over in the roots. Pal of a poacher that's thick with one of these West End game-mongers. Get the latest from him. Hear HEALY and TANNER and that lot are on the war-path, and heaven only knows when the House will be up. _S. P._ Wouldn't have mattered much in the good old days before the guv'nor let the shootin' to the brewin' Member. Lords never did a stroke of work after the Twelfth; but these Commoners ain't born and bred among the turnips. Only take the shootin' for the sake of appearances. _F. P._ Yes; and I hear that the brewin' fellow's given the first week's sport to three of these New Women. _S. P._ Means a bad time for us--blazin' into the brown, and all that. Give me the right kind of sport, I say, and a fly for my money. With these 'prentice hands you never know where you are, don't you know? Bound to fly into the pips some day or other. _F. P._ And probably no dogs to give you a wrinkle how things lie. Keepers won't bring 'em out at any price. Say it's chancy enough for themselves and the beaters, without riskin' a decent-bred setter. Lost three and a half brace of clippin' Gordons with two New Women guns last season over the other side of the county. _S. P._ Goin' in for co-operation this year? What do you think of the covey system? _F. P._ Played out, dear bird. Social fads a bit off colour, don't you know, in these Tory days. Individualism, I say, and let every fowl sit tight for himself, especially with this wild shootin' goin' on. Family ties a little loose, too, this end of the century. Look at the Divorce Courts. _S. P._ No chance of Protection, I suppose? _F. P._ Afraid not. You see they're keepin' JIMMY LOWTHER quiet with a heavy job on Committees. By the way, I see BRODRICK'S gettin' in a lot more ammunition for small-arms. Glad it's smokeless powder. Old stuff used to knock the landscape about badly. Then, again, apart from the view, must say I like to see where I'm flyin'. _S. P._ Pity CHAPLIN didn't get laid on to our department. Hear he had a notion for a bi-metallic gun; dead safe to settle agricultural depression. _F. P._ Well, anyhow, ROSEBERY did us the compliment to make our last man a Lord; though perhaps it was a covert insult, seein' he was boomin' against the Upper Chamber. Take it all round, I'm for a Tory Government. One of their openin' moves, you see, is to put the First on a Sunday. That's a bit sportsmanlike.