But he ought to have understood that he was bound in
honour to bring down competent friends. Of Tregear's shooting
Dobbes had been able to learn nothing. Lord Gerald was a lad from
the Universities; and Dobbes hated University lads. Popplecourt
and Niddledale were known to be efficient. They were men who could
work hard and do their part of the required slaughter. Dobbes
proudly knew that he could make up for some deficiency by his own
prowess; but he could not struggle against three bad guns. What
was the use of so perfecting Crummie-Toddie as to make it the best
bit of ground for grouse and deer in Scotland, if the men who came
there failed by their own incapacity to bring up the grand total
of killed to a figure which would render Dobbes and Crummie-Toddie
famous throughout the whole shooting world? He had been hard at
work on other matters. Dogs had gone amiss;--or guns, and he had
been made angry by the champagne which Popplecourt had caused to
be sent down. He knew what champagne meant. Whisky-and-water, and
not much of it, was the liquor which Reginald Dobbes loved in the
mountains.
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