W

TOLD AT DITTON.

ELL, we were talking shop. I usually encourage it secretly, though many people whose judgment in other things I respect think it

wrong. When a man who has read quite other books than your degree requires you to know is willing to talk about them, you learn a little of his work; and, more than this, you learn that there are things worth knowing not comprised in the subject of your tripos.

Now, I am a theological man, well able to discover differences and to make comfortable constructions, but of the particular logic of the lawyers I stand a chance of never knowing anything; so, he being a lawyer, I manœuvred him very tenderly on to his own particular rail and let him go.

I remember we were discussing the celebrated, but hitherto to me unknown, 'slop-smock case.' He told me how a man indicted for stealing a slop got off by shewing that he had taken not a slop but a smock:

'Balance of testimony called it a smock and the case fell through. However, the grand jury were in the next room and found a true bill for feloniously taking and carrying away a smock. Plea, autrefois acquit and

"What's autrefois acquit?'

'Oh, it means "I've been tried once for this thing and acquitted," but, in order to get off on this plea, you must. shew that you were really in jeopardy at the former trial. Now, if the thing was a smock, the man had not

been in jeopardy, because the indictment had said "slop." It seemed, then, that the plea was a bad one. Not a bit. He called a number of witnesses who swore

that the article in question was a slop and

I never heard more of the story than that, for when he reached that point something very dreadful happened.

I saw his eyes start from their sockets and his jaw distinctly drop. This for an instant. Then he veiled his eyes and turned away his head, while a deep blush suffused his face and neck, and he gave me the impression of one who wished to sink into the earth, or in any other manner escape some particularly embarrassing presence. What was it? I looked in the direction indicated by his anguish and saw nothing. At least, I saw, in the far distance, the 'Bride's cake,' then the electric chimney, then a tiny cedar tree, then a railway, and lastly the buttercups at our feet. Living objects there were none, except a soaring lark and a Dorking hen, somewhat broody and just two years old*.

Seeing no material clue to my companion's consternation, I at once attributed it to some vision he had seen and, of course, felt quite excited about it, never having knowingly been in the presence of an apparition before.

'For Heaven's sake, come away,' he said, getting up and dragging at my arm. I followed him, as he turned his back shudderingly, yet politely, on the 'Bride's cake,' the chimney, and the cedar, and slunk rapidly towards Ditton. Not until we had gone half-a-mile did he begin to recover his faculties, and even then they seemed to return seriously impaired, for his first words, whispered fiercely into my ear as he convulsively clutched my arm, were, "I had one for lunch."'

'Had one for lunch,' I answered. Had what?'

In order to be exact, I got these facts concerning the hen from its proprietor. Until then, I was not sure even that it was a hen at all.

'Hush,' he said, don't speak so loudly. I had a a'-he almost choked as he finished the sentence a chicken.'

'Why so did I. At least, that was what they called it, though it much resembled a very tough old ———.'

'Ough! stop,' he shouted, turning quite white; then halting and looking at me very sternly, 'You callous brute!'

There was a pause; each was too moved to speak for awhile. Then he resumed:

'You mean to say that, this very day, you ate a—a chicken and yet you are not ashamed to look that poor hen in the face?'

I saw it all now. It was the sight of that hen, coming forward in all her unconsciousness, innocence, and trust, that had upset my sensitive companion, who had so recently eaten of, perhaps, one of her sisters, though just possibly her grandfather.

As a theological student, I felt piqued at being considered by this common lay creature, nay callous lawyer, to be lacking in right feeling and proper shame. I rallied him on his ultra-sensitiveness and-may I be forgiven-I called him a girl.

'Why how will you like badgering witnesses, as you are safe to be expected to do, when, no doubt, your humanitarian principles make you hesitate to shoot a rabbit?'

'Hesitate! I wouldn't shoot a rabbit to save my immortal soul. But then, I know the feelings of a hunted animal much better than you possibly can.'

So we sat down again and he told me his story.

'You know that last year I went partly round the world, and imitated a vast variety of Romans, in a great many places. Well, in Brazil, four or five of us once went into the woods and began to shoot a sort of coney that takes the place of rabbits there. We had seven or eight dogs to fetch them out of the bushes, while we

shot them in the open, and, at the time, I thought it great sport. After some time, we sent the dogs home and all lay down sub tegmine fagi, so to speak, and must have dozed off to sleep. At any rate, this is what I did, for I was awakened, roughly enough, by deafening grunts and squeals, that I soon found proceeded from a herd of peccari, that broke suddenly upon us. The whole party took to their heels, in every direction, and sought the shelter of the neighbouring bushes. In our hurry we did not miss our guns, but we soon learnt what had become of them.

The peccari soon found me out and, being unarmed, I deemed it expedient to remove to another station, for the tusks of these little animals soon reach an artery and they are not easily kept at bay. While I scuttled across an open glade, judge of my astonishment when I felt severe wounds all over my legs and learnt from the report of a gun that I had been shot. When I reached shelter, I peered out to see what madman had thus assaulted me.

A very large ape stood at the end of the ride, holding a smoking fowling-piece, into which he thrust a green cartridge, which another handed him from a belt he was carrying. The ape with the gun was chattering over his shoulder, with some others in the background, similarly armed. Evidently, he was explaining why he had failed to bag me. The others took a different view of the matter, and I remember noticing that a very dirty ape with a bald spot on his head was especially derisive. (It is strange how one notices trivial circumstances in moments of extreme peril.) I began to think that I should be safer up a tree, and accordingly I began, very stealthily, to climb an old and roomy specimen near me. Before I could do this, I had attracted the attention of several peccari and was compelled to desist. I dropped to the ground and fell on my back, and in an instant received a scar across the face from the sharp tusk of one of my assailants. Again I had to run, and, as I

crossed to the next cover, the bald-headed ape took a shot, but very wide of the mark.

I can tell you that it was very far from being a joke for me, though those thieves of apes seemed to enjoy it. A straight shot at twenty yards would mean death, and it is only owing to the very bad aim of the baboons that I am here to-day to tell the story. Especially badly did the bald-headed one shoot, which when I noticed, I always made a point of breaking from his end of the

cover.

Meanwhile, shots from other directions told me that my companions were in jeopardy as great as mine. Presently, one of the apes, taking aim more recklessly than ever, fired full into the face of another ape, and to this circumstance I think we all owe our lives. The accident caused such excitement among the shooters, that the whole of our party were able to reassemble at the tree where all had been sleeping when the peccari burst upon us.

Very meekly, we made our way home-where we became the laughing-stock of the country. We did not tell our friends of the extremely unpleasant half-hour we spent in running about between the tusks of the swine and the guns of the baboons, but, if I live to be a hundred, I shall never forget the agony of that time. I made a vow that I would never draw trigger on fellowcreature again, and that is the easiest vow to keep that I ever took.

'A few days later some settlers came across the thieves and recovered two of the guns. It was with extreme regret that I learnt that the bald-headed ape was slain in the encounter. He shot so badly that I cannot help thinking he let me off several times on purpose.'

For a long time I was silent. Then I hazarded the remark, ‘All this is quite true?' I shall not forget the look that he gave me. At last his face cleared a little,

and he said