Chisholm laughed. “I’ll harden him off,” he said.
And so the hardening-off process commenced at once. Frank was not sorry, after all, to leave the gloom of Epping Forest, and commence a sportsman’s life in earnest. The plan adopted by Chisholm and his friend, Fred, to “break young Frank in, and to harden him off,” was, I think, a good one. They were to travel a good deal in England, be here to-day and away to-morrow, and visit any of the fens or moors or shores where there was the chance of a week or two of good shooting.
That was one part of the plan. The other was that they were, as Fred called it, “to forswear civilisation, and to live in tents;” in other words, to do a deal of camping out, instead of living in hotels or houses of any kind.
“How do you think you will like that kind of thing?” asked Chisholm.
“Oh, I think it will be perfectly delightful,” said Frank, enthusiastically.
“But Frank is a bit of a shot, isn’t he?” asked Fred.
“Always during vacation times,” said Frank, speaking for himself. “I used to potter around my father’s property. I have done so ever since I was a boy.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Chisholm. “Why, you’re only a boy yet.”
“All stuff,” said Frank stoutly. “I’ll be twenty next birthday.”