lematis? That'll do. Damn it, ride on!)--the stars
of the clematis modestly twinkle, and the trailing--(What the h---- is
it that trails? Honeysuckle? Good. Weigh in!)--trailing honeysuckle
flings down that rich scent that falls like sweet music on the
nerves.'"

And so on. He managed in this way to turn out the regulation column of
flummery, but I knew it could not last. And now he had come to be a sot
and an outcast. Worse has befallen him. He screwed up his nerve to write
an article in the old style, and I helped him by acting as amanuensis.
He violently attacked an editor who had persistently befriended him;
then he wrote a London Letter for that editor's paper; then he sent the
violent attack away in the envelope intended for the letter. There was a
terrible quarrel.

So far did the Gentleman, the Doctor, and Dicky come down. I may say
that Dicky, the companion of statesmen, the pride of his university,
died of cold and hunger in a cellar in the Borough. Oh, young man, boast
not of thy strength!

POACHERS AND NIGHTBIRDS.

The Chequers stands in a very nasty place, yet we are within easy
distance of a park which swarms with game. This game is preserved for
the amusement of a royal duke, who is kind enough to draw about twelve
thousand a year from the admiring taxpayer. He has not rendered any very
brilliant service to his adopted country, unless we reckon his nearly
causing the loss of the battle of Alma as a national benefit. He wept
piteously during the battle of Inkerman when the Guards got into a warm
corner, but, although he is pleasingly merciful towards Russians, he is
most courageous in his assaults on pheasants and rabbits, and the
country provides him with the finest sporting ground in England. I
should not like to say how many men make money by poaching in the park,
but we have a regular school of them at The Chequers, and they seem to
pick up a fair amount of drink money. The temptation is great. Every one
of these poaching fellows has the hunter's instinct strongly developed,
and neither fines nor gaol can frighten them. The keepers catch one
after another, but the work goes on all the same. You cannot stop men
from poaching, and there is an end of the matter. You may shout yourself
hoarse in trying to bring a greyhound to heel after he sights a hare;
but the dog _cannot_ obey you, for he is an automaton. The human
predatory animal has his share of reason, but he also is automatic to
some d