htfully, "if one could only think of it." Then he boldly
confronted his accuser.

"Since you put it to me," he said, "no, I have no game licence. But
fortunately in my case it is not necessary. I am exempt."

The Officer stared at him a moment.

"Certainly it is necessary," he said.

"Kindly show me the form of this licence," said Walter in the most
lordly, off-hand, _de-haut-en-bas_ tone of voice, and the Officer
handed him one belonging to the Major, which he had been scrutinizing.
"This, I perceive," said Walter, when he had read it carefully, "is a
licence or certificate to kill game. It doesn't apply to me."

"Why not?"

"Because I haven't killed any game."

"But you have your gun in your hand at this moment."

"That is so. This is my gun. But where, I ask you, is my dead game?
The truth is, my dear fellow," he went on, dropping his voice to a
more confidential level, "though it's pretty humiliating to have to
admit it and all that, especially before the beaters--the truth is
that I haven't hit a blamed thing to-day. Rotten, isn't it?"

Walter isn't much of a shot and there weren't many birds anyway, and
he hadn't been very lucky in his stands--and when one came to think
it over one couldn't just exactly _remember_ anything at all having
fallen to his gun.

"I call all these fellows to witness," said Walter most impressively,
"that I have killed no game. If it pleases me to discharge my gun, at
short intervals, for the sake of the bang--"

"You require a gun licence," said the Officer.

"That is not the point. I may or may not have a gun licence, but our
present controversy relates to a certificate to kill game. Do not let
us confuse the issue."

It now appeared, however, that the Officer had been waiting behind the
dyke rather longer than we knew. "I myself," he said firmly, "saw you
bring down a cock pheasant at the beginning of the last beat."

Walter consulted the paper in his hand. "I observe," he said, "that
this licence (or certificate) relates to killing game. There is
nothing said of bringing it down. I may, as you say, have induced a
cock pheasant to descend. I certainly didn't kill him. As a matter of
fact he was lightly touched on the wing, and he ran like a hare."

"He's in that patch of bracken there," said the Officer. "If you will
send a keeper and a dog with me--"

"No, I can't do that," said Walter, "unless you can show me a written
authority empowering you, in the KING's name,