'Don't you?' cried his host, with a scornful laugh. 'Where are my
silver-mounted pistols? Where's the ibex-hoof made into a paperweight?
And' -- he raised his voice to a shout of comical despair -- 'where's my
cheque-book?'

'I see.'

'I wish _I_ did. It must break the record for a neat house-robbery,
don't you think? And they'll never be caught -- I'll bet you anything
you like they won't. The job was planned weeks ago; that woman came into
the house with no other purpose.'

'But didn't your wife know anything about her?'

'What can one know about such people? There were references, I believe
-- as valuable as references usually are. She must be an old hand. But
I'm sick of the subject; let's drop it. -- You were interrupted,
Hollings. What about that bustard?'

A very tall, spare man, who seemed to rouse himself from a nap, resumed
his story of bustard-stalking in Spain last spring. Carnaby, who knew
the country well, listened with lively interest, and followed with
reminiscences of his own. He told of a certain boar, shot in the
Sierras, which weighed something like four hundred pounds. He talked,
too, of flamingoes on the 'marismas' of the Guadalquivir; of punting day
after day across the tawny expanse of water; of cooking his meals on
sandy islets at a fire made of tamarisk and thistle; of lying wakeful in
the damp, chilly nights, listening to frogs and bitterns. Then again of
his ibex-hunting on the Cordilleras of Castile, when he brought down
that fine fellow whose head adorned his room, the horns just