A Final Story
All keepers are shamed when sportsmen go home from their preserves with empty bags. To have in a party a shooter "who never shot noth'n' all day long" reacts on the keeper's fame. We noticed that a crafty keeper friend would always scheme to place an old colonel well forward of the line of guns; and as the colonel was never seen to add to the bag, we asked for an explanation. "Well, ye see, it be like this 'ere," came the answer. "I knows as 'e can't shoot, and 'e knows it; but I knows and 'e knows that if 'e be put forward 'e be likely to get a shot at a rabbit what's stopped to think. And 'e knows that I knows that 'e will pay somethink 'andsome when 'e can go 'ome an' tell 'is missus as 'ow 'e ain't bin an' disgraced 'isself agin. So I puts 'im forward; and every time 'e shoots a rabbit what's stopped to think, it reminds 'e of I."
