, "but what should we do if we
couldn't get rid of some of these lunatics for at least part of the
day?"

"Reasonable, I admit," Deyes answered, "but think what an intolerable
nuisance they make of themselves for the other part. I double No Trumps,
Lady Peggy."

Lady Peggy laid down her cards.

"For goodness' sake, no more digressions," she implored. "Remember,
please, that I play this game for the peace of mind of my tradespeople!
I redouble!"

The hand was played almost in silence. Lady Peggy lost the odd trick and
began to add up the score with a gentle sigh.

"After all," her partner remarked, returning to the subject which they
had been discussing, "I don't think that we could get on very well in
this country without sport, of some sort."

"Of course not," Deyes answered. "We are all sportsmen, every one of us.
We were born so. Only, while some of us are content to wreak our
instinct for destruction upon birds and animals, others choose the
nobler game--our fellow-creatures! To hunt or trap a human being is
finer sport than to shoot a rocketing pheasant, or to come in from
hunting with mud all over our clothes, smelling of ploughed fields,
steaming in front of the fire, telling lies about our exploits--all
undertaken in pursuit of a miserable little animal, which as often as
not outwits us, and which, in an ordinary way, we wouldn't touch with
gloves on! What do you say, Lady Peggy?"

"You're getting beyond me," she declared. "It sounds a little savage."

Deyes dealt the cards slowly, talking all the while.

"Sport is savage," he declared. "No one can deny it. Whether the quarry
be human or animal, the end is death. But of all its varieties, give me
the hunting of man by man, the brain of the hunter coping with the wiles
of the hunted, both human, both of the same order. The game's even then,
for at any moment they may change places--the hunter and his quarry.
It's finer work than slaughtering birds at the coverside. It gives your
sex a chance, Lady Peggy."

"It sounds exciting," she admitted.

"It is," he answered.

His hostess looked up at him languidly.

"You speak like one who knows!"

"Why not?" he murmured. "I have been both quarry and hunter. Most of us
have more or less! I declare Hearts!"

Again there was an interval of silence, broken only by the stock phrases
of the game, and the soft patter of the cards upon the table. Once more
the hand was played out and the cards gathered up. Capt