A Keeper Chorister
The gamekeeper has a way of putting things to surprising and ingenious uses. Usually he carries a dog-lead concealed somewhere about his person—a yard or two of string attached to a simple spring clip; and this lead serves a hundred purposes apart from restraining dogs. One case we remember well, where a dog-lead saved a situation. The vocal services of a keeper had been impressed for a festival of choirs; but when he arrived, just before the procession was timed to start, it was found that the one cassock which would encircle his figure was so long that he could walk in it only with danger of falling. Of course there was no string anywhere to be found, except in the shape of the dog-lead. The dog-lead saved the day, and the robed procession started off, lustily singing. It chanced that the keeper was one of the two leading choirmen, and when he noticed that his companion was rather headstrong in taking a corner, "Heel, will yer," he was heard to mutter, absent-mindedly, as he flicked his friend with the snap of his dog-lead from a besurpliced arm-hole; "heel, sir, heel."
