On this particular evening Dick was supremely happy. Keene had got him upon shooting--the only subject on which that unlucky man could talk without committing himself; and, by the time he was well into his fourth tumbler of iced Cogniac and water, he was achieving a rare conversational triumph; for he had left off answering monosyllabically, had volunteered an observation or two, and even ventured to banter his companions about their not availing themselves sufficiently of the sporting resources in the neighborhood. "There are several boars near here," he was saying; "they shoot them sometimes, and you can go if you manage properly. I wonder you men never found that out." "Ah! they _did_ talk a good deal about pigs," Royston remarked indifferently. "But, you see, we used to stick them in the Deccan. The first time I heard of their way of doing it here, I felt very like Deering when they asked him to shoot a fox in Scotland. Tom Deering, you know, the old boy that has hunted with the Warwickshire and Atherstone for thirty seasons, and could tell you the names, ages, and colors of the hounds better than he could those of his own small family--pedigrees, too, I shouldn't wonder." Dick tried to look as if he had known the man from his childhood, and succeeded but very moderately. "Well," the other went on, "they were beating a cover for roe, and the gillie suggested a particular pass, as the most likely to get a shot at what he called a 'tod.' It was some time before Tom realized the full horror of the proposition: when he did, he shut his eyes like a bull that is going to charge, and literally _fell_ upon the duinhe-wassel, bellowing savagely. He had no more idea of using his hands than a fractious baby; but it is rather a serious thing when sixteen stone of solid flesh becomes possessed by a devil. Robin Oig was overborne by the onset, and did not forget the effects of it that season." Tresilyan laughed applaudingly, as he always did when he could understand more than half a story. "I suppose it's pretty good fun hunting them out there?" he said, going off at score, as usual, on the fresh theme. "Not bad," Keene replied; "sharp going while it lasts, and a little knack wanted to stick them scientifically. Some say it's more exciting than fox-hunting, but that's childish; I never heard a man assert it whose liver was not on the wane. It's more dangerous, certainly. A header into the Smite or the Whissendine is nothing to a fall backward into a nullah, with a beaten horse on the top of you." Molyneux woke up from a reverie. The familiar word stirred his blood like a trumpet, and it flashed up brightly in his pale cheek as he spoke. "Ah! we have had a brushing gallop or two in the gay old times, before we got married, and invalided, and all that sort of thing. Dick, I should like to tell you how I got my first spear."