"Woodcocks!—what, have you made me walk since the morning through perfect beds of briars and over miles of large stones, escalade the mountains, descend precipices, and brought me through water-courses and dark ravines, to kill a few woodcocks?"
"Would you prefer confronting a wild boar?"
"Certainly," said the puffing convalescent; "if there was no chance of danger, I should infinitely prefer killing a boar."
"For to-day this is impossible."
"Why so?"
"Why, in the first place, there are no boars in this wood, and it is too late to take you to those which they frequent."
"Then we shall find only woodcocks in the place we are going to?"
"Nothing else; at least during the half-hour we shall remain."
"And if we were to remain more than half an hour?"