"You have never shot much?"
"Not what you call very much. I'm not so old as you are, you know. Everything must have a beginning." Mr. Dobbes wished "the beginning" might have taken place elsewhere; but there had been some truth in the remark.
"What on earth made you tell him crammers like that?" asked Silverbridge, as the brothers sat together afterwards smoking on the wall of the bridge.
"Because he made an ass of himself; asking me whether I could shoot."
On the next morning they started at seven. Dobbes had determined to be cross, because, as he thought, the young men would certainly keep him waiting; and was cross because by their punctuality they robbed him of any just cause for offence. During the morning on the moor they were hardly ever near enough each other for much conversation, and very little was said. According to arrangement made they returned to the house for lunch, it being their purpose not to go far from home till their numbers were complete. As they came over the bridge and put down their guns near the door, Mr. Dobbes spoke the first good-humoured word they had heard from his lips. "Why did you tell me such an infernal—, I would say lie, only perhaps you mightn't like it?"
"I told you no lie," said Gerald.
"You've only missed two birds all the morning, and you have shot forty-two. That's uncommonly good sport."
"What have you done?"
"Only forty," and Mr. Dobbes seemed for the moment to be gratified by his own inferiority. "You are a deuced sight better than your brother."
"Gerald's about the best shot I know," said Silverbridge.