FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS 59 



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 break- 

 fast ? 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 whisky and soda before they went to 

 bed. I know better. It is because they in- 

 cautiously 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 



