I was cured of my fancy for firing at its head; moreover, this one promised to pass me broadside on, within twenty-five paces, and it kept its promise. I aimed with greater calmness than might have been expected of me, and fired, convinced that I had now secured a brace of hares.
The priming burnt, but the shot did not go off.
This was a sad misfortune.
I tried to let off one of M. Deviolaine's expressive oaths, but it was a half-hearted attempt: they did not seem to suit me. I never could swear properly, even in my angriest moments.
I pricked my gun, I primed it, and I waited.
M. Moquet had certainly not deceived me: a third hare came in the wake of its predecessors, and, like the last one, it crossed at right angles to me, within twenty paces! As before, I aimed and, when I had covered it carefully with my gun, I pressed my finger on the trigger.
Only the priming burnt.
I was furious; I could have cried with rage; all the more as a fourth hare was coming along at a gentle trot.
It was the same with this one as with the two others. He was as obliging as possible, and my gun as perverse as can be imagined.
It passed within fifteen steps of me, and, for the third time, my priming burnt, but the gun did not go off.