He looked again from the bay-window to make sure that his mother was not in sight. Then the creaking of a door startled him and he laid the rifle down. It was queer how every little sound startled him. He unfastened his negligee shirt at the neck and, standing before the pier-glass, arranged it as much like the frontispiece pictures of Dan Dreadnought as possible. There was a curious fluttering feeling in his chest all the while which annoyed him. It did not seem to jibe at all with the heroic program.
Yes, this was the rifle with which he would...
He tiptoed to the stairs and listened, “Molly, is that you?” he called.
“Yes, Master Connover.”
“All right, I just wanted to know.”
He went back into the room and opening the drawer of the desk, took out a box of cartridges, extracted several and put them in his pocket. When he replaced the box he forgot which end of the drawer he had taken it from and was in a quandary where to place it. He took up the rifle again, then laid it down and the thud of its butt on the floor startled him. What a lot of noise it seemed to make!
It was oily and his hands were oily from it and left an oily stain on the felt covering of the desk. He placed the inkstand over it, and all the while he felt very strange and nervous; trembling almost as he planned his exploit.
Then he took the rifle and got behind the revolving-chair, and rested the weapon on it. It was not a very realistic jungle, but...
He saw the Zulus just as plain as day; and he saw himself, or rather, Dan Dreadnought, in that big pier-glass.
He knew the gun was not loaded and he pulled the trigger, which clicked.