DOR. Ah, Marquis, continually we find tedious people interrupting the
course of our pleasures! You see me enraged on account of a splendid
hunt, which a booby ... It is a story I must relate to you.

ER. I am looking for some one, and cannot stay.

DOR. (_Retaining him_). Egad, I shall tell it you as we go along.
We were a well selected company who met yesterday to hunt a stag; on
purpose we went to sleep on the ground itself--that is, my dear sir, far
away in the forest. As the chase is my greatest pleasure, I wished, to
do the thing well, to go to the wood myself; we decided to concentrate
our efforts upon a stag which every one said was seven years old.

[Footnote: The original expression is _cerf dix-corps_; this,
according to the _dictionnaire de chasse_, is a seven years' old
animal.]

But my own opinion was--though I did not stop to observe the marks--that
it was only a stag of the second year.

[Footnote: The technical term is: "a knobbler;" in French, _un cerf a
sa seconde tete.]

We had separated, as was necessary, into different parties, and were
hastily breakfasting on some new-laid eggs, when a regular
country-gentleman, with a long sword, proudly mounted on his brood-mare,
which he honoured with the name of his good mare, came up to pay us an
awkward compliment, presenting to us at the same time, to increase our