the species. I was
just a trifle crestfallen at this indifference. You see at this time I
was not accustomed to the casual duck. My shooting heretofore had been a
very strenuous matter. It had involved arising many hours before sun-up,
and venturing forth miles into wild marshes; and much endurance of cold
and discomfort. To make a bag of any sort we were in the field before
the folk knew the night had passed. Upland shooting meant driving long
distances, and walking through the heavy hardwood swamps and slashes
from dusk to dusk. Therefore I had considered myself in great luck to
have blundered upon my ducks so casually; and, furthermore, from the
family's general air of leisure and unpreparedness, jumped to the
conclusion that no field sport was projected for that day.

Mrs. Kitty presided beside a copper coffee pot with a bell-shaped glass
top. As this was also an institution, it merits attention. A small
alcohol lamp beneath was lighted. For a long time nothing happened. Then
all at once the glass dome clouded, was filled with frantic brown and
racing bubbling. Thereupon the hostess turned over a sand glass. When
the last grains had run through, the alcohol lamp was turned off.
Immediately the glass dome was empty again. From a spigot one drew off
coffee.

But if perchance the Captain and I wished to get up before anybody else
could be hired to get up, the Dingbat could be so loaded as to give down
an automatic breakfast. The evening before the maid charged the affair
as usual, and at the last popped four eggs into the glass dome. After
the mysterious alchemical perturbations had ceased, we fished out those
eggs soft boiled to the second! One day the maid mistook the gasoline
bottle for the alcohol bottle. That is a sad tale having to do with
running flames, and burned table pieces, not to speak of a melted-down
connection or so on the Dingbat. We did not know what was the matter;
and our attitude was not so much that of alarm, as of grief and
indignation that our good old tried and trained Dingbat should in his
old age cut up any such didoes. Especially as there were new guests
present.

After breakfast we wandered out on the verandah. Nobody seemed to be in
any hurry to start anything. The hostess made remarks to
Pollymckittrick; the General read a newspaper; the Captain sauntered
about enjoying the sun. After fifteen minutes, as though the notion had
just occurred, somebody suggested that we go shooting.

"H