the sofa. "It's a hodious spirit."

"That's just it, Mr. Ribbs," said Harry Stubbings. "It's all meant
for opposition. Whether it's shooting or whether it's hunting, it's
all one. Such a chap oughtn't to be allowed to have land. I'd take
it away from him by Act of Parliament. It's such as him as is
destroying the country."

"There ain't many of them hereabouts, thank God!" said the
landlord.

"Now, Mr. Twentyman," said Stubbings, who was anxious to make
friends with the gentleman-farmer, "you know what land can do, and
what land has done, as well as any man. What would you say was the
real damage done to them two wheat-fields by his lordship's game
last autumn? You saw the crops as they were growing, and you know
what came off the land."

"I wouldn't like to say."

"But if you were on your oath, Mr. Twentyman?

"Was there more than seven-and-sixpence an acre lost?"

"No, nor five shillings," said Runciman.

"I think Goarly ought to take his lordship's offer--if you mean
that," said Twentyman.

Then there was a pause, during which more drink was brought in, and