The letter had been forwarded to me from London, for I was spending the week-end in Leicestershire with the Scarlets.
I looked across the flagged hall to my host, who was leaning against a table with a hunting horn in each hand, listening critically to the noise he was making, and endeavouring to decide upon which of the two instruments he could wind the most inspiring call.
"Live and let live," said I. With a grin Bertram suspended his operations. "Listen. I've been offered a Sealyham."
"Take him," was the reply. "Your guests will regret it, but you won't. They're high-spirited and they're always full of beans. Hard as nails, too," he added. "You'll never kill him. Tell me." He brandished the horn which he held in his right hand. "Don't you think this sounds the best?" With an effort he produced a most distressing sound. "Or this?" Putting the other to his lips, he emitted a precisely similar note.
"There's no difference at all," said I, crossing to a bureau. "They're equally painful. They do it rather better at level-crossings on the Continent."
"It is patent," said Bertram, "that you have no ear for music."
"All right," said I, making ready to write. "You try it. The hounds'll all sit up and beg or something. I suppose it's too much to expect to find a pen that'll write here," I added, regarding uneasily the enormous quill with which the bureau was decorated.
"That's a jolly good pen," said Bertram indignantly. "Every one says so."
I grunted my disbelief.
"Which end shall I use?"