"Sniggs's rencontre with the bird-catcher reminds me of Tom Swivel's
meeting with the Doctor," observed Smart.

"Make a report," cried Jack Saggers.

"Well, you must know, that I had lent him my piece for a day's shooting;
and just as he was sauntering along by a dead wall near Hampstead,
looking both ways at once for a quarry (for he has a particular squint),
a stout gentleman in respectable black, and topped by a shovel-hat,
happened to be coming in the opposite direction. With an expression of
terror, the old gentleman drew himself up against the unyielding bricks,
and authoritatively extending his walking-stick, addressed our sportsman
in an angry tone, saying: 'How dare you carry a loaded gun pointed at
people's viscera, you booby?' Now Tom is a booby, and no mistake, and so
dropping his under jaw and staring at the reverend, he answered: 'I don't
know vot you mean by a wiserar. I never shot a wiserar!'"

"Devilish good!" exclaimed Saggers; and, as a matter of course, everybody
laughed.

Passing about the bottle, the club now became hilarious and noisy; when
the hammer of the president rapped them to order, and knocked down Sniggs
for a song, who, after humming over the tune to himself, struck up the
following:


CHAUNT

When the snow's on the ground and the trees are all bare,
And rivers and gutters are turned into ice,