careful now," ses Dicky Weed, the tailor.

"All right; 'ave it your own way," ses Bob, nasty-like. "I don't know
much about shooting, being on'y a pore labourin' man. All I know is I
shouldn't like to go beating for them. I'm too fond o' my wife and
family."

"There won't be no more shot," ses Sam Jones.

"We're too careful," ses Peter Gubbins.

"Bob Pretty don't know everything," ses Dicky Weed.

"I'll bet you what you like there'll be some more of you shot," ses Bob
Pretty, in a temper. "Now, then."

"'Ow much'll you bet, Bob," ses Sam Jones, with a wink at the others.
"I can see you winking, Sam Jones," ses Bob Pretty, "but I'll do more
than bet. The last bet I won is still owing to me. Now, look 'ere; I'll
pay you sixpence a week all the time you're beating if you promise to
give me arf of wot you get if you're shot. I can't say fairer than
that."

"Will you give me sixpence a week, too?" ses Henery Walker, jumping up.

"I will," ses Bob; "and anybody else that likes. And wot's more, I'll
pay in advance. Fust sixpences now."

Claybury men 'ave never been backward when there's been money to be made
easy, and they all wanted to join Bob Pretty's club, as he called it.
But fust of all 'e asked for a pen and ink, and then he got Smith, the
land-lord, being a scholard, to write out a paper for them to sign.
Henery Walker was the fust to write 'is name, and then Sam Jones, Peter
Gubbins, Ralph Thomson, Jem Hall, and Walter Bell wrote theirs. Bob
stopped 'em then, and said six 'ud be enough to go on with; and then 'e
paid up the sixpences and wished 'em luck.

Wot they liked a'most as well as the sixpences was the idea o' getting
the better o' Bob Pretty. As I said afore, he was a poacher, and that
artful that up to that time nobody 'ad ever got the better of 'im.

They made so much fun of 'im the next night that Bob turned sulky and
went off 'ome, and for two or three nights he 'ardly showed his face; and
the next shoot they 'ad he went off to Wickham and nobody saw 'im all
day.

That very day Henery Walker was shot. Several gentlemen fired at a
rabbit that was started, and the next thing they knew Henery Walker was
lying on the ground calling out that 'is leg 'ad been shot off.

He made more fuss than Bill Chambers a'most, 'specially when they dropped
'im off a hurdle carrying him 'ome, and the things he said to Dr. Green
for rubbing his 'ands as he came into the bedroom was disgraceful.

Th