"Since you put it to me," he said, "no, I have no game licence. But fortunately in my case it is not necessary. I am exempt."
The Officer stared at him a moment.
"Certainly it is necessary," he said.
"Kindly show me the form of this licence," said Walter in the most lordly, off-hand, de-haut-en-bas tone of voice, and the Officer handed him one belonging to the Major, which he had been scrutinizing. "This, I perceive," said Walter, when he had read it carefully, "is a licence or certificate to kill game. It doesn't apply to me."
"Why not?"
"Because I haven't killed any game."
"But you have your gun in your hand at this moment."
"That is so. This is my gun. But where, I ask you, is my dead game? The truth is, my dear fellow," he went on, dropping his voice to a more confidential level, "though it's pretty humiliating to have to admit it and all that, especially before the beaters—the truth is that I haven't hit a blamed thing to-day. Rotten, isn't it?"
Walter isn't much of a shot and there weren't many birds anyway, and he hadn't been very lucky in his stands—and when one came to think it over one couldn't just exactly remember anything at all having fallen to his gun.