_First Sportsman_ (_concluding a harangue_). All I can say is, I never read such rot in all my life. Why, the fellow doesn't know a gun from a cartridge-bag. I'm perfectly sick of reading that everlasting rubbish about "pampered minions of the aristocracy slaughtering the unresisting pheasant in his thousands at battues." I wonder what the beggars imagine a rocketing pheasant is like? I should like to have seen one of 'em outside Chivy Wood to-day. I never saw taller birds in my life. Talk of _them_ being easy! Why, a pheasant gets ever so much more show for his money when he's beaten over the guns. If they simply walk him up, he hasn't got a thousand to one chance. Bah! [_Drinks from a long glass._ _Second Sportsman._ I saw in some paper the other day what the President of the United States thought about English battue-shooting. Seemed to think we shot pheasants perched in the trees, and went on to say that wasn't the sport for _him; he_ liked to go after his game, and find it for himself. Who the deuce cares if he does? If he can't talk better sense than that, no wonder CLEVELAND beat him in the election. _Third Sp._ Pure rubbish, of course. Still I must say, apart from pheasants, I like the old plan of letting your dogs work. It's far more sport than walking up partridges in line, or getting them driven at you. _First Sp._ My dear fellow, I don't agree with you a bit. In the first place, as to driving--driven birds are fifty times more difficult; and what's the use of wasting time with setters or pointers in ordinary root-fields. It's all sentiment. [A long and animated discussion ensues. This particular subject never fails to provoke a tremendous argument. (_A few minutes later._) _Second Sp._ (_to the host_). What was the bag to-day, CHALMERS? _Chalmers._ A hundred and forty-five pheasants, fifty-six rabbits, eleven hares, three pigeons, and a woodcock. We should have got a hundred and eighty pheasants if they hadn't dodged us in the big wood. I can't make out where they went. _Second Sp._ It's a deuced difficult wood to beat, that is. I thought we should have got more hares, all the same. _Chalmers._ Hares! I think I'm precious lucky to get so many nowadays. There won't be a hare left in a year or two. (_The discussion proceeds._) _Third Sp._ How's old JOHNNY RAIKES shooting this year? I never saw such a chap for rocketers. They can't escape him. _Chalmers._ I asked him to-day, but he couldn't come. I think for pheasants he's quite the best shot in England. Nobody can beat him at that game. _Fourth Sp._ Hasn't he got some row or other on with =Crackside=? _Chalmers._ Yes. That makes fourteen rows =Crackside= has got going on all at once. He seems to revel in them. His latest move was to refuse to pay tithe, and when the parson levied a distress, he made all his tenants drunk and walked at their head blowing a post-horn. He's as mad as a hatter.