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After the first few days of his arrival at Shotover ti heavily on Mortinised that his shooting career was practically over; he had beco the last year to endure the physical exertion; his habits, too, had at lengthin the sun, and the veins in his neck swelled o, eyes inflamed, fat arms wobbly, he had scored miss after miss, and laboured onward, sullenly persistent to the end But it was the end That cup day finished hi the Law of Pleasure, which finishes us before we are finished with it, he did not experience any particular sense of deprivation in the prospect Only the wholesoence in more convenient forms, cast about him within his new limits for occupation between those hours consecrated to the rites of the table and the card-room

He drove four, but found that it numbed his arreed with hih ennui to fish off the rocks, he soon tired of the sea-perch and rock-cod and the malodours of periwinkle and clam

Then he frankly took to Major Belwether's sunny side of the gun-room, with illustrated papers and apples and decanter But Major Belwether, always as careful of his digestion as of his financial secrets, blandly dodged the pressing invitations to rum and confidence, until Morti-roo elsewhere Which she did, unobtrusively carrying Captain Voucher with her in a sudden zeal for billiard practice on rainythe coast

Morti the financially insolvent, for living lavishly on an invisible income But, plan as he would, he had never been able to increase that incoossip with men like Quarrier or Belwether, or even Ferrall What inforht have extracted he did not know; her inco point, although, like hi One short, lively intervieith her had been enough to drive all partnership ideas out of his head If he wanted to learn anything financially advantageous to himself he must do it without her aid; and as he was perpetually in hopes of the friendly hint that never came, he still moused about when opportunity offered; and this also helped to kill time