"My word, they've looted a blooming menagerie," he panted in my ear; "still, couldn't expect to pick Pytchley puppies off every bush, I suppose." "What have they got, actually?" I inquired. "Two couple of Belgian light-draught dogs--you know, the kind they hitch on to any load too heavy for a horse--an asthmatic beagle, an anæmic bloodhound, a domesticated wolf, an unfrocked poodle, and a sort of dropsical pug." "What on earth is the pug for?" I asked. "Luck," said Albert Edward. "Your henchman says 'them kind of little dogs do be bringing ye luck,' and backs it up with a very convincing yarn of an uncle of his in Bally-something who had a lucky dog--'as like this wan here as two spits, except maybe for the least little curliness of the tail'--which provided complete immunity from ghosts, witches' evil and ingrowing toe-nails. I thought it cheap at five francs." "But, good Lord, that lot'll never hunt hares," I protested. "Won't they?" said Albert Edward grimly. "With the only meal they'll ever see prancing along in front of them, and you and me prancing along behind scourging 'em with scorpions, I rather fancy they will. By the way, I know you won't mind, but I've had to shift your bed out under the chestnut-tree; it's really quite a good tree as trees go." "But why can't I stop in my hen-house?" I objected. "Because I've just moved the pack there," said he. "But why?" I went on. "What's the matter with the ice-house?" "That's just it," he hissed in my ear; "it isn't an ice-house--never was; it's the De Valcourt family vault." The next day being propitious, we decided to hold our first meet that evening, and issued a few invitations. The Veterinary Bloke and the Field Cashier promised to show up, likewise the Padre, once the sacredness of our cause had been explained to him. At noon "stables" Albert Edward reported the pack in fine fettle. "Kicking up a fearful din and look desperate enough to hunt a holy angel," said he. "At five o'clock, me lad, Hard forrard! Tally-ho! and Odds-boddikins!" However at 4.45 p.m., just as I was mounting, he appeared in my lines wearing slacks and a very downcast expression. "Wash-out," he growled; "they've been fed and are now lying about, blown up and dead to the world." "But who the devil fed them?" I thundered. "They fed themselves," said Albert Edward. "They ate the blooming lucky dog at half-past four." We therefore postponed the hunt until the morrow; but cannibalism (so cannibals assure me), once indulged in, becomes as absorbing as morphia or jig-saws, and at two-fifteen the next afternoon my groom reported the beagle to have gone the way of the pug, and the pack once more dead to the world. There was nothing for it but to postpone the show yet again, and tie up each hound separately as a precaution against further orgies.