It was yesterday afternoon, towards the close of the last beat of our annual cover shoot, that I perceived a fellow in a yellow waterproof popping up his head from time to time (at no little risk to his life) over a dyke some way behind the line of guns. As soon as the beaters came out he advanced and introduced himself as an Excise Officer, asking "if this would be a convenient moment to examine the game licences of the party." It was not at all a convenient moment for Walter--who hadn't got one. My thoughts flew at once to Walter in this crisis, for I knew he was bound to be had. Walter never does have game licences, season tickets, adhesive labels, telegraph forms or things of that sort. And as he had only returned from Canada two days before and this was the first time that he had been out, and further as he immediately disappeared and hid behind the hedge, I knew that my worst suspicions must be confirmed. While the Excise Officer was taking down the names and addresses of the rest of the party I went after Walter. He was sitting in the ditch with his head in his hands. "If this had happened a few years ago, old chap," he said, "when I was a younger man, I should have run for it. But to-day I believe that feller would overhaul me within half-a-mile. My wind's rotten. Do you think he'll find us here?" "Yes," said I, "he is coming this way." Walter got up. "There must be some way out of it," he said thoughtfully, "if one could only think of it." Then he boldly confronted his accuser. "Since you put it to me," he said, "no, I have no game licence. But fortunately in my case it is not necessary. I am exempt." The Officer stared at him a moment. "Certainly it is necessary," he said. "Kindly show me the form of this licence," said Walter in the most lordly, off-hand, _de-haut-en-bas_ tone of voice, and the Officer handed him one belonging to the Major, which he had been scrutinizing. "This, I perceive," said Walter, when he had read it carefully, "is a licence or certificate to kill game. It doesn't apply to me." "Why not?" "Because I haven't killed any game." "But you have your gun in your hand at this moment." "That is so. This is my gun. But where, I ask you, is my dead game? The truth is, my dear fellow," he went on, dropping his voice to a more confidential level, "though it's pretty humiliating to have to admit it and all that, especially before the beaters--the truth is that I haven't hit a blamed thing to-day. Rotten, isn't it?" Walter isn't much of a shot and there weren't many birds anyway, and he hadn't been very lucky in his stands--and when one came to think it over one couldn't just exactly _remember_ anything at all having fallen to his gun. "I call all these fellows to witness," said Walter most impressively, "that I have killed no game. If it pleases me to discharge my gun, at short intervals, for the sake of the bang--" "You require a gun licence," said the Officer.