Too poor, at first, to
rent a cottage for himself, he lodged at the miserable village-inn,
which, with its eccentric drunken landlord, he has sketched in one of
his novels; and when fortune proved less unkind to him, he took a
cottage which lay between the highway and the forest, and there the
first happy years of his life were spent. They were few, and they were
checkered. His chief petty annoyance was his want of skill as a
sportsman. He could never bring down game with his gun, and he was
passionately fond of shooting. On taking up his abode in the country,
the first thing he had made was a full hunting-suit in the most approved
fashion, and this costume he would wear upon all occasions, even when he
came up to Paris. He never attained any nearer approximation to a
sportsman's character. One day he went out shooting with a friend. A
flock of partridges rose at their feet.
"Fire, Murger! fire!" exclaimed his friend.
"Why, great heavens, man, I can't shoot so! Wait until they _light_ on
yon fence, and then I'll take a crack at them."
He could no better shoot at stationary objects, however, than at game on
the wing. Hard by his cottage a hare had burrowed in a potato-field.
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