Now for the explanation of how I accomplished the feat, a wonderful one for a novice, as everybody who understands pigeon shooting will readily agree. During the fortnight or so preceding the match, Billy Grant had taken me out every morning to a quiet place in the country, and there set me shooting at sparrows released from a trap similar to a pigeon trap.
“They’re cheaper than pigeons,” remarked Billy simply when I asked him why he employed sparrows. Later on, when I came to shoot for the cup, I understood his real reason. The pigeons looked to me like ostriches after the tiny sparrows, and I felt I simply couldn’t miss them.
Later on I shot for the championship of England at Hendon, where I thought myself unknown; but I was quickly undeceived. Each competitor was allowed to take up to five chances at £5 a chance, and half-a-crown for each bird. I took three chances.
A man named Dillon was the handicapper, and when I asked him where I stood he indicated the 28 yards mark. I was taken aback at this, for I had reckoned on being placed on the 25 or 26 yards mark, and I had my gun bored accordingly. Any good pigeon shooter will understand the importance of this. A gun in these contests is bored to allow of a certain “spread” at a certain fixed distance, and mine being bored for 25–26 yards, at 28 yards the spread would be too big. I could not expect to get the proper concentration, and even if I hit the bird I could not be sure of bringing it down within the boundary.
“Oh, but, Mr. Dillon,” I objected, “I’m only a novice. Surely you’re not going to put me back to 28 yards.”
But Dillon was adamant. “You can’t ‘kid’ me,” he retorted. “I know all about your performance up at Newcastle last February.”
After this, of course, there was no more to be said. I took my stand on the 28 yards mark, thereby giving three yards start to a man who had won the Grand Prix at Monte Carlo. As regards two of my shares I got knocked out in the fifth round, for though I shot my sixth bird on each occasion I did not succeed in bringing it down inside the boundary, owing to the shot spreading, exactly as I had foreseen.
With my third chance, however, I killed eleven birds running before the same thing happened. The winner was the man who had carried off the Monte Carlo Grand Prix, and who shot off the 25 yards mark. His was the “unlucky” number thirteen.
Most “pro.’s” have had the honour of appearing before royalty; or they say they have. It really did happen to me. I was showing at Earl’s Court at the time; a little side-show, entitled “Satan’s Dream; a Supernatural Illusion.” It was an illusion of the kind that was just then all the rage, a girl’s head on a pitch-fork, with the prongs sticking through, and straw hanging down. Why “Satan’s Dream,” I’m sure I don’t know. But, anyway, it was a good drawing title, and I was coining money easy all day at sixpence a time for admission. “What’s in a name?” they say. My answer is: “Everything—when it comes to the show business.”
Well, one day I was standing outside my pitch as usual in the intervals of showing, pattering for an audience, when the late Duke of Cambridge came along, accompanied by Princess Beatrice and her children, and attended, of course, by the Earl’s Court directors. Directly I saw them coming I made up my mind that I was going to have them inside my show, so I waited until they were a few yards away, and then I opened wide the gate, took off my hat, and bowed low.