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My lord seeks his highland moor, Norvegian salmon river, or more homely coverside; the retired grocer, in his snug retreat at Tooting, builds himself an arbour of rocks and mosses, and, by dint of strong imagination and stronger tobacco, becomes a very Kalmuck in his back-garden; and it is by no means improbable that the grocer in his rockery and the grandee at his rocketers draw their instincts of pleasure from the same long-ago time "When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

The Emperor was in the middle; and although, as I noticed, he made some beautiful shots at rocketers, he was engaged much of the time in talking to ministers who walked behind, or beside, him.

Mr Pinsent did not profess himself a fancier. His columbarium a mixed collection of fantails and rocketers had come to him by a side-wind of business, as offset against a bad debt; but it pleased him to sit on his terrace and watch the pretty creatures as they wheeled in flight over the harbour and among the masts of the shipping.

We passed through one wood, in height of trees, sweep of ground, color of soil, and build of boundary-fence, so exactly like a certain cover in Norfolk similarly bisected by the rail, that I could have picked out the precise spot where, many a time and oft, I have waited for the "rocketers."

You want a new one; I am sure you do! Ned would make a beauty, for he loves nothing so much as a country life. He is a splendid shot. Jim saw him knock over twelve rocketers running, last time they were out together, and he goes in for all kinds of sport. His father had a beautiful country place when they were rich, and he is always talking of what he used to do. He looks so sweet in gaiters, too!

Grundy would turn upon his darling, and the fair mark he would himself be bound to offer that grim old father, who had served under Wellington, or that soft-spoken dandy brother in the Guards, unerring at "rocketers," and deadly for all ground game, neither of whom would probably shoot the wider, under the circumstances that he, the offender, felt in honour he must stand at least one discharge without retaliation, an arrangement which makes twelve paces uncomfortably close quarters for the passive and immovable target.

No quadruped is indigenous to New Zealand, except a rat; but then, on the other hand, we are as free from snakes and all vermin as if St. Patrick himself had lived here. Our host has turned several pheasants into this forest, but they increase very slowly on account of the wekas. However, the happiness of this morning was made complete by our putting up two splendid rocketers.

It lay in the Melton country, and was equally well placed for Pytchley, Quorn, and Belvoir, besides possessing its own small but very perfect pack of "little ladies," or the "demoiselles," as they were severally nicknamed; the game was closely preserved, pheasants were fed on Indian corn till they were the finest birds in the country, and in the little winding paths of the elder and bilberry coverts thirty first-rate shots, with two loading-men to each, could find flock and feather to amuse them till dinner, with rocketers and warm corners enough to content the most insatiate of knickerbockered gunners.

Instead of continuing to sell Textiles, I covered as far as I could; and I bought so eagerly and so heavily that, more than Langdon's corps of rocketers, I was responsible for the stock's rally and start upward. When I say "eagerly" and "heavily," I do not mean that I acted openly or without regard to common sense.