At the end of the third drive last Saturday morning
a butler was seen advancing, like a subfusc symbol of doom, through a field of knee-high lucerne towards the guns. The face of the Yugoslav Ambassador, who was standing next to me, fell, for M. Velebit is keenly addicted to shooting. A car bore him away to the nearest telephone and we did not expect to see him again: But he returned to say goodbye and was induced without difficulty to take part in the drive which was just starting. After the pick-up he jogged off across the stubble, caught up with the guns who were moving on to the next stand, bade them punctilious farewells and vanished with his pretty wife in the direction of London. Thinking over the various exits—from the dynamic, boot:and-saddle, not-a- Moment-to-be-lost to the slightly feline, your-Government-can- at - least - claim - to - have-saved-the-lives-of-a-few-partridges which a diplomatist in these circumstances might have been forgiven for making, I decided that M. Velebit had managed his departure in the happiest possible way.
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