“If this had happened a few years ago, old chap,” he said, “when I was a younger man, I should have run for it.  But to-day I believe that feller would overhaul me within half-a-mile.  My wind’s rotten.  Do you think he’ll find us here?”

“Yes,” said I, “he is coming this way.”

Walter got up.  “There must be some way out of it,” he said thoughtfully, “if one could only think of it.”  Then he boldly confronted his accuser.

“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.

“I call all these fellows to witness,” said Walter most impressively, “that I have killed no game.  If it pleases me to discharge my gun, at short intervals, for the sake of the bang—­”

“You require a gun licence,” said the Officer.

“That is not the point.  I may or may not have a gun licence, but our present controversy relates to a certificate to kill game.  Do not let us confuse the issue.”

It now appeared, however, that the Officer had been waiting behind the dyke rather longer than we knew.  “I myself,” he said firmly, “saw you bring down a cock pheasant at the beginning of the last beat.”

Walter consulted the paper in his hand.  “I observe,” he said, “that this licence (or certificate) relates to killing game.  There is nothing said of bringing it down.  I may, as you say, have induced a cock pheasant to descend.  I certainly didn’t kill him.  As a matter of fact he was lightly touched on the wing, and he ran like a hare.”

“He’s in that patch of bracken there,” said the Officer.  “If you will send a keeper and a dog with me—­”

“No, I can’t do that,” said Walter, “unless you can show me a written authority empowering you, in the KING’s name, to borrow keepers and dogs.”