ver made in two successive days--"

"My aunt, who owns the greater part of Lincolnshire," broke in
Treddleford, with dramatic abruptness, "possesses perhaps the most
remarkable record in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever been
achieved. She is seventy-five and can't hit a thing, but she always goes
out with the guns. When I say she can't hit a thing, I don't mean to say
that she doesn't occasionally endanger the lives of her fellow-guns,
because that wouldn't be true. In fact, the chief Government Whip won't
allow Ministerial M.P.'s to go out with her; 'We don't want to incur by-
elections needlessly,' he quite reasonably observed. Well, the other day
she winged a pheasant, and brought it to earth with a feather or two
knocked out of it; it was a runner, and my aunt saw herself in danger of
being done out of about the only bird she'd hit during the present reign.
Of course she wasn't going to stand that; she followed it through bracken
and brushwood, and when it took to the open country and started across a
ploughed field she jumped on to the shooting pony and went after it. The
chase was a long one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to a
standstill she was nearer home than she was to the shooting party; she
had left that some five miles behind her."

"Rather a long run for a wounded pheasant," snapped Amblecope.

"The story rests on my aunt's authority," said Treddleford coldly, "and
she is local vice-president of the Young Women's Christian Association.
She trotted three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the middle
of the afternoon that it was discovered that the lunch for the entire
shooting party was in a pannier attached to the pony's saddle. Anyway,
she got her bird."

"Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing," said Amblecope; "so do
some fish. I remember once I was fishing in the Exe, lovely trout
stream, lots of fish, though they don't run to any great size--"

"One of them did," announced Treddleford, with emphasis. "My uncle, the
Bishop of Southmolton, came across a giant trout in a pool just off the
main stream of the Exe near Ugworthy; he tried it with every kind of fly
and worm every day for three weeks without an atom of success, and then
Fate intervened on his behalf. There was a low stone bridge just over
this pool, and on the last day of his fishing holiday a motor van ran
violently into the parapet and turned completely over; no one was hurt,
but part of the parape