"Any sport?" I asked, as he came up with me.
He shook his head.
"Not a single rabbit anywhere," said he.
You see, everybody has his little sense of dignity. I am not alone in the possession of it when I will not tell Bellwattle what a fool I have been. Four times at least before he had passed out of sight I had seen him raise his gun to his shoulder, ready to fire at a rabbit sitting peacefully within twenty yards of him. Then, without a blush to his face, he assures me he has not seen one. But this is the common instinct of a man. He will not be thought a fool. God alone knows how completely he may be one.
"I'm glad to find," said I, "that you're not one of those men who blaze away for the mere sake of shooting."
He took my arm at that.
"You noticed I didn't fire a shot?" said he.
"I should have heard it," said I, "if you had."
"I think," said he, "without flattering myself, that I'm one of those men who has an unusual amount of self-control."
But the moment he had said it, Fate played her pranks with him. There came a rabbit out from the undergrowth to sit blandly on the beaten track in front of us. Up went his gun.