"My good fellow," I said to him one day, seeing his extraordinary trepidation, "if you are so staggered by a covey of partridges, what in the world will you do when I set you face to face with a wolf or a wild boar?"
"Oh! that is a very different affair. A wolf or a wild boar? Why, I should kill one and eat the other, of course."
"Not so easy," I should think, "for a novice like you."
"Novice, indeed! me a novice. Oh! you are quite in error. The fact is, these devils of birds and rabbits lie hidden, do you see, under the grass like frogs, one never knows where; so that I never see them till they are all but in my eyes, or cutting capers like Taglioni's under my feet, and your dogs putting out their tongues, and staring at me."
"Why, of course they do; the intelligent brutes are ready to expire at your awkwardness."
"Much obliged to you for the compliment. Again, you say, they turn their tails to the right by way of telling me that I am to go to the left; and to the left, when I am to walk to the right. Who, I ask you, is to understand such telegraphs as these? I have not yet learned how to converse with dogs' tails—intelligence, indeed! I believe it is all humbug; for, when my whole soul is absorbed in watching the tips of these very tails, a crowd of partridges jump up just in front of me, making as much noise as if they were drummers beating the retreat. If I am hurried and stupefied"....
"And if," I added, "you are much disposed to throw down your gun as to fire it."
"Well! supposing I am; what is the wonder? 'Tis no fault of mine—I am not used to partridge-shooting! I am not a wild man of the woods, like you! I did not cut my teeth gnawing a cartridge, as you did!"
"Come, come! don't be affronted."