CHAPTER XVI.
MR. FOGG AS A SPORTSMAN AND A SPOUSE.
Game was so plenty about our neighborhood last fall that Mr. Fogg determined to become a sportsman. He bought a double-barrel gun, and after trying it a few times by firing it at a mark, he loaded it and placed it behind the hall door until he should want it. A few days later he made up his mind to go out and shoot a rabbit or two, so he shouldered his gun and strode off toward the open country. A mile or two from the town he saw a rabbit; and taking aim, he pulled the trigger. The gun failed to go off. Then he pulled the other trigger, and again the cap snapped. Mr. Fogg used a strong expression of disgust, and then, taking a pin, he picked the nipples of the gun, primed them with a little powder and made a fresh start. Presently he saw another rabbit. He took good aim, but both caps snapped. The rabbit did not see Mr. Fogg, so he put on more caps, and they snapped too.
Then Mr. Fogg cleaned out the nipples again, primed them and leveled the gun at a fence. The caps snapped again. Then Mr. Fogg became furious, and in his rage he expended forty-two caps trying to make the gun go off. When the forty-second cap missed also, Mr. Fogg thought, perhaps, there might be something the matter with the inside of the gun, and so he sounded the barrels with his ramrod. To his utter dismay, he discovered that both barrels were empty. Mrs. Fogg, who is nervous about firearms, had drawn the loads without telling Fogg. The language used by Mr. Fogg when he made this discovery was extremely disgraceful, and he felt sorry for it a moment afterward. As he grew cooler he loaded both barrels and started afresh for the rabbits. He saw one in a few moments and was about to fire, when he noticed that there were no caps on the gun. He felt for one, and, to his dismay, found that he had snapped the last one off. Then he ground his teeth and walked home. On his way he saw a greater number of rabbits than he ever saw before or is likely to see again, and as he looked at them and thought of Mrs. Fogg he felt mad and murderous. He went gunning eight or ten times afterward that autumn, always with a full supply of ammunition, but he never once saw a rabbit or any other kind of game within gun-shot.
[Illustration: AN INDIGNANT GUNNER]
But he forgave Mrs. Fogg, and for a while their domestic peace was unruffled. One evening, however, while they were sitting together, they got to talking about their married life and their past troubles until both of them grew quite sympathetic. At last Mrs. Fogg suggested that it might help to kindle afresh the fire of love in their hearts if they would freely confess their faults to each other and promise to amend them. Mr. Fogg said it struck him as being a good idea. For his part, he was willing to make a clean breast of it, but he suggested that perhaps his wife had better begin. She thought for a moment, and this conversation ensued:
"Well, then," said Mrs. Fogg, "I am willing to acknowledge that I am the worst-tempered woman in the world."
Mr. Fogg (turning and looking at her). "Maria, that's about the only time you ever told the square-toed truth in your life."
Mrs. Fogg (indignantly). "Mr. Fogg, that's perfectly outrageous. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
F. "Well, you know it's so. You have got the worst temper of any woman I ever saw—the very worst; now haven't you?"