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I have been asked to say, whether a man may abuse his gun? I reply emphatically, no. A gun is not a mere ordinary machine. Its beautiful arrangement of locks, and springs, and catches, and bolts, and pins, and screws, its unaccountable perversities, its occasional fits of sulkiness, its lovely brown complexion, and its capacity both for kicking and for smoking, all prove that a gun is in reality a sentient being of a very high order of intelligence. You may be quite certain that if you abuse your gun, even when you may imagine it to be far out of earshot, comfortably cleaned and put to roost on its rack, your gun will resent it. Why are most sportsmen so silent, so distraits at breakfast? Why do they dally with a scrap of fish, and linger over the consumption of a small kidney, and drink great draughts of tea to restore their equilibrium? If you ask them, they will tell you that it's because they're "just a bit chippy," owing to sitting up late, or smoking too much, or forgetting to drink a whiskey and soda before they went to bed. I know better. It is because they incautiously spoke evil of their guns, and their guns retaliated by haunting their sleep. I know guns have this power of projecting horrible emanations of themselves into the slumbers of sportsmen who have not treated them as they deserved. I have suffered from it myself. It was only last week that, having said something derogatory to the dignity of my second gun, I woke with a start at two o'clock in the morning, and found its wraith going through the most horrible antics in a patch of moonlight on my bed-room floor. I shot with that gun on the following day, and missed nearly everything I shot at. Could there be a more convincing proof? Take my advice, therefore, and abstain from abusing your gun.
Now your typical smoking-room conversation ought always to include the following subjects:—(1) The wrong-headed, unpopular man, whom every district possesses, and who is always at loggerheads with somebody; (2) "The best shot in England," who is to be found in every country-side, and in whose achievements all the sportsmen of his particular district take a patriotic pride; (3) the folly and wickedness of those who talk or write ignorantly against any kind of sport; (4) the deficiency of hares due to the rascally provisions of the Hares and Rabbits Act; (5) a few reminiscences, slightly glorified, of the particular day's sport; and (6) a prolonged argument on the relative merits of the old plan of shooting birds over dogs, and the modern methods of walking them up or driving. These are not the only, but certainly the chief ingredients. Let me give you an example, drawn from my note-book.
Scene—The Smoking-room of a Country-house in December. Six Sportsmen in Smoking-coats. Time, 11.15 p.m.
First Sportsman (concluding a harangue). All I can say is, I never read such rot in all my life. Why, the fellow doesn't know a gun from a cartridge-bag. I'm perfectly sick of reading that everlasting rubbish about "pampered minions of the aristocracy slaughtering the unresisting pheasant in his thousands at battues." I wonder what the beggars imagine a rocketing pheasant is like? I should like to have seen one of 'em outside Chivy Wood to-day. I never saw taller birds in my life. Talk of them being easy! Why, a pheasant gets ever so much more show for his money when he's beaten over the guns. If they simply walk him up, he hasn't got a thousand to one chance. Bah!
[Drinks from a long glass.
Second Sportsman. I saw in some paper the other day what the President of the United States thought about English battue-shooting. Seemed to think we shot pheasants perched in the trees, and went on to say that wasn't the sport for him; he liked to go after his game, and find it for himself. Who the deuce cares if he does? If he can't talk better sense than that, no wonder Cleveland beat him in the election.
Third Sp. Pure rubbish, of course. Still I must say, apart from pheasants, I like the old plan of letting your dogs work. It's far more sport than walking up partridges in line, or getting them driven at you.
First Sp. My dear fellow, I don't agree with you a bit. In the first place, as to driving—driven birds are fifty times more difficult; and what's the use of wasting time with setters or pointers in ordinary root-fields. It's all sentiment.
[A long and animated discussion ensues. This particular subject never fails to provoke a tremendous argument.