The Pride of Jennico by Egerton Castle — Read

IT was over a dish of devilled kidneys and a couple of bottles of Burgundy that-pressed by the eager curiosity of his English friends, no less than by the interest M. de Ville-Rouge continued to profess in his concerns with all Teutonic earnestness-Basil Jennico began to narrate his misadventures in the same tone of ironical resentment with which he had already alluded to them.

"It began at Farringdon Dane," he said, "on the little property in Suffolk which my mother has placed at my disposal. 'Twas some six weeks gone, walking through the wood at sundown, I was shot at from behind a tree. The charge passed within an inch of my face, to embed itself in a sapling behind me. I was, according to my wont-an evil habit-deeply absorbed in thought, and was alone; consequently, although I searched the copse from end to end, I could find no trace of my well-wisher. That was number one. I gave very little heed to the occurrence at first, believing it to be some poacher's trick, or maybe the unwitting act of what you call in your country, Chevalier, a Sunday sportsman, who mistook my brown beaver for the hide of a nobler quarry. But the next attempt gave me more serious food for reflection. This time I was shot at while sitting reading in my study at night, when all the household had retired. It was close weather, and I had drawn the curtains and opened the windows.