often do this sort of thing?"

"Well," he answered, with a dry smile, "the last time I had to load
three shots as quickly as that was at rather larger game. It was at
elephants. I killed them all three as dead as I killed those woodcocks;
but it very nearly went the other way, I can tell you; I mean that they
very nearly killed me."

Just at that moment the keeper came up, "Did you happen to get one of
them there cocks, sir?" he said, with the air of a man who did not in
the least expect an answer in the affirmative.

"Well, yes, Jeffries," answered Quatermain; "you will find one of them
by the hedge, and another about fifty yards out by the plough there to
the left----"

The keeper had turned to go, looking a little astonished, when
Quatermain called him back.

"Stop a bit, Jeffries," he said. "You see that pollard about one hundred
and forty yards off? Well, there should be another woodcock down in a
line with it, about sixty paces out in the field."

"Well, if that bean't the very smartest bit of shooting," murmured
Jeffries, and departed.

After that we went home, and in due course Sir Henry Curtis and Captain
Good arrived for dinner, the latter arrayed in the tightest and most
ornamental dress-suit I ever saw. I remember that the waistcoat was
adorned with five pink coral buttons.