Conyers did his utmost to set his guest at his ease. He passed his cigar-case across the table, and led him on, as well as he might, to talk. But Tom was awestruck, not alone by the splendors around him, but by the condescension of his host; and he could not divest himself of the notion that he must have been mistaken for somebody else, to whom all these blandishments might be rightfully due.
“Are you fond of shooting?” asked Conyers, trying to engage a conversation.
“Yes,” was the curt reply.
“There must be good sport hereabouts, I should say. Is the game well preserved?”
“Too well for such as me. I never get a shot without the risk of a jail, and it would be cheaper for me to kill a cow than a woodcock!” There was a stern gravity in the way he said this that made it irresistibly comic, and Conyers laughed out in spite of himself.
“Have n't you a game license?” asked he.
“Haven't I a coach-and-six? Where would I get four pounds seven and ten to pay for it?”
The appeal was awkward, and for a moment Conyers was silent At last he said, “You fish, I suppose?”
“Yes; I kill a salmon whenever I get a quiet spot that nobody sees me, and I draw the river now and then with a net at night.”
“That's poaching, I take it.”