The Smoking-Room (_continued_).
I MAY assume, that after the terrible example given in my last chapter,
you have firmly made up your mind never on any account to take service
in the great army of bores. But this determination is not all that is
necessary. A man must constantly keep a strict guard on himself, lest he
should unconsciously deviate even for a few minutes into the regions of
boredom. Whatever you do, let nothing tempt you to relate more than once
any grievance you may have. Nothing of course is more poisonous to the
aggrieved one than to stifle his grievance absolutely. Once, and once
only, he may produce it to his friends. I shall be blamed, perhaps, for
making even this slight concession. Please be careful, therefore, not to
abuse it. Is there in the whole world a more ridiculous sight than a
strong, healthy, well-fed sportsman who wearies his companions one after
another with the depressing recital of his ill-luck, or of the dastardly
behaviour of the head-keeper in not stopping the whole party for half an
hour to search for an imaginary bird, which is supposed to have fallen
stone-dead somewhere or other; or of the iniquities of the man from whom
he bought his cartridges in not loading them with the right charge; or
any of the hundred inconveniences and injuries to which sportsmen are
liable. All these things may be as he says they are. He may be the most
unfortunate, the most unjustly treated of mankind. But why insist upon
it? Why check the current of sympathy by the dam of constant repetition?
And, after all, how trivial and absurd the whole thing is! Even a man
whose career has been ruined by malicious persecution will be avoided
like a pest if it is known that he dins the account of his wrongs into
everyone's ears. How, then, shall the sufferer by the petty injuries of
ordinary sport be listened to with patience? Of all bores, the
grievancemonger is the fiercest and worst. Lay this great truth by in
your memory, and be mindful of it in more important matters than sport
when the occasion arises.
[Illustration]
I have been asked to say, whether a man may abuse his gun? I reply
emphatically, no. A gun is not a mere ordinary machine. Its beautiful
arrangement of locks, and springs, and catches, and bolts, and pins, and
screws, its unaccountable perversities, its occasional fits of
sulkiness, its lovely brown complexion, and its capacity both for
kicking and for smoking, all prove that a gun is in reality a sentient
being of a very high order of intelligence. You may be quite certain
that if you abuse your gun, even when you may imagine it to be far out
of earshot, comfortably cleaned and put to roost on its rack, your gun
will resent it. Why are most sportsmen so silent, so _distraits_ at
breakfast? Why do they dally with a scrap of fish, and linger over the
consumption of a small kidney, and drink great draughts of tea to
restore their equilibrium? If you ask them, they will tell you that it's
because they're "just a bit chippy," owing to sitting up late, or
smoking too much, or forgetting to drink a whiskey and soda before they
went to bed. I know better. It is because they incautiously spoke evil
of their guns, and their guns retaliated by haunting their sleep. I
_know_ guns have this power of projecting horrible emanations of
themselves into the slumbers of sportsmen who have not treated them as
they deserved. I have suffered from it myself. It was only last week
that, having said something derogatory to the dignity of my second gun,
I woke with a start at two o'clock in the morning, and found its wraith
going through the most horrible antics in a patch of moonlight on my
bed-room floor. I shot with that gun on the following day, and missed
nearly everything I shot at. Could there be a more convincing proof?
Take my advice, therefore, and abstain from abusing your gun.
Now your typical smoking-room conversation ought always to include the
following subjects:--(1) The wrong-headed, unpopular man, whom every
district possesses, and who is always at loggerheads with somebody; (2)
"The best shot in England," who is to be found in every country-side,
and in whose achievements all the sportsmen of his particular district
take a patriotic pride; (3) the folly and wickedness of those who talk
or write ignorantly against any kind of sport; (4) the deficiency of
hares due to the rascally provisions of the Hares and Rabbits Act; (5) a
few reminiscences, slightly glorified, of the particular day's sport;
and (6) a prolonged argument on the relative merits of the old plan of
shooting birds over dogs, and the modern methods of walking them up or
driving. These are not the only, but certainly the chief ingredients.
Let me give you an example, drawn from my note-book.
SCENE--_The Smoking-room of a Country-house in December. Six Sportsmen
in Smoking-coats. Time_, 11.15 P.M.
_First Sportsman_ (_concluding a harangue_). All I can say is, I never
read such rot in all my life. Why, the fellow doesn't know a gun from a
cartridge-bag. I'm perfectly sick of reading that everlasting rubbish
about "pampered minions of the aristocracy slaughtering the unresisting
pheasant in his thousands at battues." I wonder what the beggars imagine
a rocketing pheasant is like? I should like to have seen one of 'em
outside Chivy Wood to-day. I never saw taller birds in my life. Talk of
_them_ being easy! Why, a pheasant gets ever so much more show for his
money when he's beaten over the guns. If they simply walk him up, he
hasn't got a thousand to one chance. Bah!
[_Drinks from a long glass._
_Second Sportsman._ I saw in some paper the other day what the President
of the United States thought about English battue-shooting. Seemed to
think we shot pheasants perched in the trees, and went on to say that
wasn't the sport for _him; he_ liked to go after his game, and find it
for himself. Who the deuce cares if he does? If he can't talk better
sense than that, no wonder CLEVELAND beat him in the election.
_Third Sp._ Pure rubbish, of course. Still I must say, apart from
pheasants, I like the old plan of letting your dogs work. It's far more
sport than walking up partridges in line, or getting them driven at you.
_First Sp._ My dear fellow, I don't agree with you a bit. In the first
place, as to driving--driven birds are fifty times more difficult; and
what's the use of wasting time with setters or pointers in ordinary
root-fields. It's all sentiment.
[A long and animated discussion ensues. This particular
subject never fails to provoke a tremendous argument.
(_A few minutes later._)
_Second Sp._ (_to the host_). What was the bag to-day, CHALMERS?
_Chalmers._ A hundred and forty-five pheasants, fifty-six rabbits,
eleven hares, three pigeons, and a woodcock. We should have got a
hundred and eighty pheasants if they hadn't dodged us in the big wood. I
can't make out where they went.
_Second Sp._ It's a deuced difficult wood to beat, that is. I thought we
should have got more hares, all the same.
_Chalmers._ Hares! I think I'm precious lucky to get so many nowadays.
There won't be a hare left in a year or two.
(_The discussion proceeds._)
_Third Sp._ How's old JOHNNY RAIKES shooting this year? I never saw such
a chap for rocketers. They can't escape him.
_Chalmers._ I asked him to-day, but he couldn't come. I think for
pheasants he's quite the best shot in England. Nobody can beat him at
that game.
_Fourth Sp._ Hasn't he got some row or other on with =Crackside=?
_Chalmers._ Yes. That makes fourteen rows =Crackside= has got going on
all at once. He seems to revel in them. His latest move was to refuse to
pay tithe, and when the parson levied a distress, he made all his
tenants drunk and walked at their head blowing a post-horn. He's as mad
as a hatter.
So there you have a sample conversation, sketched in outline. You will
find it accurate enough. All you have to do is to select for yourself
the part you mean to play in it.
* * * * *
Something to Live For.
(_From the Literary Club Smoking-room._)
_Cynicus._ I'm waiting till my friends are dead, in
order to write My Reminiscences?
_Amicus._ Ah, but remember, "_De mortuis nil nisi
bonum._"
_Cynicus._ Quite so. I shall tell nothing but
exceedingly good stories about them.
* * * * *
SO LIKE HER!--"I can never trust him," said Mrs. R.,
alluding to a friend of hers, who considered himself
well up in SHAKSPEARE, "because I've found out before
now that he gargles his quotations."
NOTE.--"The Man who Would," _will_ appear next week. No. IV.
* * * * *
[Illustration:
=THE RHODES COLOSSUS=