_Compiled for the Use of the Epping Deer-stalkers._
This wounded buck that is approaching us, painfully dragging its
shattered hind-leg after it, must be the same creature we peppered,
after such good sport, last Tuesday week.
Dear me, I did not know that our hunting-pack consisted of a mastiff,
two poodles, three bull-dogs, a beagle, and a bloodhound.
Are these clumsy sportsmen, who blaze away without knowing what they
are firing at, the "gentlemen" invited by the Verderer to assist him
at the chase? Ha! I think, from the way he shakes his head as he makes
off, that I must have hit that old buck nearly in the eye.
No, I am mistaken. I can clearly see now from the manner in which he
is limping that I must have wounded the young deer badly in the ankle.
I wonder whether I shall find him lying down in a copse and dying some
time next week.
My friends will certainly have to wait for their venison, for, strange
to say, that is the seventeenth buck I have maimed this morning who
has managed to drag himself off after being hit.
Fortunately the officers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals are engaged in Town.
While this lasts, however, there cannot be a doubt but that the
quality of the sport is excellent.
I wonder whether the Conservators are really fully aware of what a
regular good time of it I'm having.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "LONDON QUITE EMPTY!"