It was about three o'clock in the afternoon of one of those dark, misty, dispiriting November days, when the sun is scarcely visible, and sinks early to rest, that half-a-dozen fashionable gentlemen were lounging in the bay-window of a Club-House in St. James's Street. They were all dressed in the first style: gold chains festooned over waistcoats of the most recent Parisian fashion; and brilliantly polished boots, without a speck of mud upon them, showed that their owners had not arrived at the Club on foot. "What news in the political world, Greenwood?" asked the Marquis of Holmesford. "Nothing particular," answered the gentleman appealed to. "Our party is sure to drive the Whigs out next year; and then I shall show the independent and enlightened freemen of Rottenborough that they will acquire some honour through the medium of their representative." "I suppose you will do a little good for yourself—eh, Greenwood?" asked the Honourable Augustus Smicksmack—a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, and just turned nineteen: "a baronetcy—eh, Greenwood? for that's the rumour, I believe?" "Well, I _do_ hope that Fame for once is not far wrong, my dear fellow," answered Mr. Greenwood. "And I must beg of you to support my friend the Honourable Gively Starkeley's new Game Bill, which he intends to introduce next session," observed Lord Dunstable—a major in a crack regiment, and whose age was probably one-and-thirty. "A new Game Bill!" ejaculated Mr. Greenwood, horror depicted on his countenance. "Surely your friend Starkeley cannot mean to relax the penalties which now exist in respect to poaching?" "Quite the reverse," answered Lord Dunstable. "He thinks—as I think—that the present statute is not stringent enough; and he has drawn up a bill—at least, Rumrigg the barrister did for him—making it transportation for life to shoot game without a license, and transportation for fifteen years for looking at a bird or a hare with an unlawful purpose." "_That Bill_ will receive my most unqualified support, Dunstable," said Mr. Greenwood. "In fact, the laws cannot be too stringent against poachers." "Certainly not," observed Colonel Cholmondeley, a gentleman of about three-and-thirty who was one of the group in the Club-House window. "For my part, I consider a murderer or a highwayman to be an estimable character in comparison with a poacher." "Decidedly so," exclaimed Lord Dunstable. "A murderer kills his victim—a highwayman robs a person; and the thing is done. The individuals murdered or plundered alone suffer. But a poacher deprives hundreds of noblemen and gentlemen of their legitimate sport: he preys upon the aristocracy, as it were;—and, by God! I'll defend the privileges of the aristocracy with my life!"