"Well, I do hope that Fame for once is not far wrong, my dear fellow," answered Mr. Greenwood.
"And I must beg of you to support my friend the Honourable Gively Starkeley's new Game Bill, which he intends to introduce next session," observed Lord Dunstable—a major in a crack regiment, and whose age was probably one-and-thirty.
"A new Game Bill!" ejaculated Mr. Greenwood, horror depicted on his countenance. "Surely your friend Starkeley cannot mean to relax the penalties which now exist in respect to poaching?"
"Quite the reverse," answered Lord Dunstable. "He thinks—as I think—that the present statute is not stringent enough; and he has drawn up a bill—at least, Rumrigg the barrister did for him—making it transportation for life to shoot game without a license, and transportation for fifteen years for looking at a bird or a hare with an unlawful purpose."
"That Bill will receive my most unqualified support, Dunstable," said Mr. Greenwood. "In fact, the laws cannot be too stringent against poachers."
"Certainly not," observed Colonel Cholmondeley, a gentleman of about three-and-thirty who was one of the group in the Club-House window. "For my part, I consider a murderer or a highwayman to be an estimable character in comparison with a poacher."
"Decidedly so," exclaimed Lord Dunstable. "A murderer kills his victim—a highwayman robs a person; and the thing is done. The individuals murdered or plundered alone suffer. But a poacher deprives hundreds of noblemen and gentlemen of their legitimate sport: he preys upon the aristocracy, as it were;—and, by God! I'll defend the privileges of the aristocracy with my life!"
"Oh! certainly—certainly," muttered the Marquis of Holmesford, who, in consequence of swollen gums, had been compelled to lay aside his false teeth for a few days, and was therefore somewhat incomprehensible in his speech. "Always defend the aristocracy! The millions, as they call themselves, are ever ready to assail us: they're jealous of us, you see—because we have carriages and horses, and they have not."
"And for many other reasons," observed Mr. Greenwood. "But I always know how to serve the scurvy riff-raff. Why, it was but the other day that some thirty or forty of the independent and intelligent electors of Rottenborough assembled together at the Blue Lion in their town, to address a remonstrance to me on my parliamentary conduct, and call upon me to resign."
"And what did you do?" asked Lord Dunstable.