The Gun.
No subject offers a greater variety of conversation than this. But, of course, the occasion counts for a good deal. It would be foolish to discharge it (metaphorically speaking) at the head of the first comer. You must watch for your opportunity. For instance, guns ought not to be talked about directly after breakfast, before a shot has been fired. Better wait till after the shooting-lunch, when a fresh start is being made, say for the High Covert half a mile away. You can then begin after this fashion to your host:—"That's a nice gun of yours, CHALMERS. I saw you doing rare work with it at the corner of the new plantation this morning." CHALMERS is sure to be pleased. You not only call attention to his skill, but you praise his gun, and a man's gun is, as a rule, as sacred to him as his pipe, his political prejudices, his taste in wine, or his wife's jewels. Therefore, CHALMERS is pleased. He smiles in a deprecating way, and says, "Yes, it's not a bad gun, one of a pair I bought last year."
"Would you mind letting me feel it?"
"Certainly not, my dear fellow here you are."
You then interchange guns, having, of course, assured one another that they are not loaded. Having received CHALMERS's gun, you first appear to weigh it critically. Then, with an air of great resolution, you bring it to your shoulder two or three times in rapid succession, and fire imaginary shots at a cloud, or a tuft of grass. You now hand it back to CHALMERS, observing, "By Jove, old chap, it's beautifully balanced! It comes up splendidly. Suits me better than my own." CHALMERS, who will have been going through a similar pantomime with your gun, will make some decently complimentary remark about it, and each of you will think the other a devilish knowing and agreeable fellow.
From this point you can diverge into a discussion of the latest improvements, as, e.g., "Are ejectors really valuable?" This is sure to bring out the man who has tried ejectors, and has given them up, because last year, at one of the hottest corners he ever knew, when the sky was simply black with pheasants, the ejectors of both his guns got stuck. He will talk of this incident as another man might talk of the loss of a friend or a fortune. Here you may say,—"By gad, what frightful luck! What did you do?" He will then narrate his comminatory interview with his gun-maker; others will burst in, and defend ejectors, or praise their own gun-makers, and the ball, once set rolling, will not be stopped until you take your places for the first beat of the afternoon, just as MARKHAM is telling you that his old Governor never shoots with anything but an old muzzle-loader by MANTON, and makes deuced good practice with it too.
"Choke" is not a very good topic; it doesn't last long. After you have asked your neighbour if his gun is choked, and told him that your left barrel has a modified choke, the subject is pretty well exhausted.
"Cast-off." Not to be recommended. There is very little to be made of it.
Something may be done with the price of guns. There's sure to be someone who has done all his best and straightest shooting with a gun that cost him only £15. Everybody else will say, "It's perfect rot giving such high prices for guns. You only pay for the name. Mere robbery." But there isn't one of them who would consent not to be robbed.
It sometimes creates a pretty effect to call your gun "My old fire-iron," or "my bundook," or "this old gas-pipe of mine."
"Bore." Never pun on this word. It is never done in really good sporting society. But you can make a few remarks, here and there, about the comparative merits of twelve-bore and sixteen-bore. Choose a good opening for telling your story of the man who shot with a fourteen-bore gun, ran short of cartridges on a big day, and was, of course, unable to borrow from anyone else. Hence you can deduce the superiority of twelve-bores, as being the more common size.
All these subjects, like all others connected with shooting, can be resumed and continued after dinner, and in the smoking-room. Talk of the staleness of smoke! It's nothing to the staleness of the stories to which four self-respecting smoking-room walls have to listen in the course of an evening.
(To be continued.)
