"What are they, flappers?"
"No, sir, mature birds. I was out on the marshes before daylight. The birds were coming off the meils—and North Creake flat. First day since February, sir! You know what I was feeling like!"
"Don't I, oh, don't I, by Jove! Now tell me. What were you using?"
"Well, sir, I thought I would fire at nothing but duck on the first day. Just to christen the day, sir. So I used five and a half and smokeless diamond. Your cartridges."
"What gun?"
"Well, I used my old pigeon gun, sir. It's full choke, both barrels and on the meils it's always a case of long shots."
"Why didn't you have one of my guns? The long-chambered twelve, or the big Greener ten-bore—they're there in the cupboard in the gun room, you've got the key! Did a whole sord of mallard come over, or were those three stragglers?"
"A sord, sir. The two drakes were right and left shots and this duck came down too. As I said to the mistress just now, 'last year,' I said, 'Mr. Gilbert and I were out for two mornings after the first of August and we never brought back nothing but a brace of curlew—and now here's a leash of duck, M'm.'"
"If you'd had a bigger gun, and a sord came over, you'd have got a bag, William! Why the devil didn't you take the ten-bore?"
"Well, sir, I won't say as I didn't go and have a look at 'im in the gun room—knowing how they're flighting just now and that a big gun would be useful. But with you lying in bed I couldn't do it. So I went out and shot just for the honour of the house, as it were."