"Come, don't look at the bill no more," advised Spriggs, but treat it as old Villiams does his servants ven they displeases him."
"How's that?"
"Vy, discharge it, to be sure," replied he.
This sage advice being promptly followed, the sportsmen, shouldering their guns, departed in quest of amusement. They had not, however, proceeded far on their way, before a heavy shower compelled them to take shelter under a hedge.
"Werry pleasant!" remarked Spriggs.
"Keep your powder dry," said Grubb.
"Leave me alone," replied Spriggs; "and I think as we'd better pop our guns under our coat-tails too, for these ere cocks aint vater-cocks, you know! Vell, I never seed sich a rain. I'm bless'd if it vont drive all the dickey-birds to their nestes."
"I vish I'd brought a numberella," said Grubbs.
"Lank! vot a pretty fellow you are for a sportsman!" said Spriggs, "it don't damp my hardour in the least. All veathers comes alike to me, as the butcher said ven he vos a slaughtering the sheep!"
Mr. Richard Grubb, here joined in the laugh of his good-humoured friend, whose unwearied tongue kept him in spirits—rather mixed indeed than neat—for the rain now poured down in a perfect torrent.