“Try again, my boy; there’s nothing like practice.”
“Ah, yes! I make it out now; a faint shadow just under the sun. Is that it?”
“Ay, and we’ll break our fast there.”
“I would like very much to break your head here,” thought Charley, but he did not say it, as, besides being likely to produce unpleasant consequences, he felt that such a speech to an elderly gentleman would be highly improper; and Charley had some respect for grey hairs for their own sake, whether the owner of them was a good man or a goose.
“What shall we do, Harry? If I had only thought of keeping out a book.”
“I know what I shall do,” said Harry, with a resolute air:
“I’ll go and shoot!”
“Shoot!” cried Charley. “You don’t mean to say that you’re going to waste your powder and shot by firing at the clouds! for, unless you take them, I see nothing else here.”
“That’s because you don’t use your eyes,” retorted Harry. “Will you just look at yonder rock ahead of us, and tell me what you see.”
Charley looked earnestly at the rock, which to a cursory glance seemed as if composed of whiter stone on the top. “Gulls, I declare!” shouted Charley, at the same time jumping up in haste.