necessary that either of the sportsmen whose dialogue has been
reported should believe implicitly in the absolute truth of what he is
saying. Observe, neither of them says that he himself met this man.
He merely gets conversation out of him on the strength of what someone
else has told him. That, you see, is the real trick of the thing.
Don't bind yourself to such a story as being part of your own personal
experience. Work it in on another man's back. Of course there are
exceptions even to this rule. But this question I shall be able to
treat at greater length when I come to deal with the important subject
of "Shooting Anecdotes."

[Illustration]

Very often you can work up quite a nice little conversation on
cigarettes. Every man believes, as is well-known, that he possesses
the only decent cigarettes in the country. He either--(1), imports
them himself from Cairo, or (2), he gets his tobacco straight from
a firm of growers somewhere in Syria and makes it into cigarettes
himself; or (3), he thinks Egyptian cigarettes are an abomination,
and only smokes Russians or Americans; or (4), he knows a man,
BACKASTOPOULO by name, somewhere in the Ratcliffe Highway, who
has _the_ very best cigarettes you ever tasted. You wouldn't give
two-pence a hundred for any others after smoking these, he tells you.
And, lastly, there is the man who loathes cigarettes, despises those
who smoke them, and never, smokes anything himself except a special
kind of cigar ornamented with a sort of red and gold garter.

Out of this conflict of preferences the young shooter can make
capital. By flattering everybody in turn, he can practically get his
smoking gratis, for everyone will be sure to offer him at least one