no GUNS 



is possible to be quite young, to feel even younger 

 than you actually are, until you go back to the 

 first rabbit you snared or shot, the first blackbird's 

 nest you knew of, the first butterfly you netted ; 

 then you do begin to feel a little antique. So 

 many things have happened since then, so many 

 fresh interests have come crowding into a man's 

 life, so many new friends made, and — that it should 

 be so ! — so many old friends lost. I have a wretched 

 memory for many things, but that first gun is un- 

 forgetable. It was unquestionably Brummagem. 

 It was a single-barrel, a long barrel that was not 

 by any means straight. A friend, whom I was 

 telling about this gun the other day, said, '' By 

 Jove ! not straight ? I shouldn't have cared to 

 shoot with it. How was it that it didn't burst?" 

 Frankly, I should not care to let that gun off 

 to-day, unless I were to see a shot or two fired 

 safely with it by somebody else just before. But 

 that is because I have since grown quite accus- 

 tomed to straight barrels made of harder material. 

 The gun was safe enough when properly loaded, 

 and its killing power was remarkable when you 

 held it straight. Of course it was a muzzle-loader. 

 In our parts breech-loaders were by no means 

 general then. My tutor used to hire a pin-fire 

 breech-loader then, and pot rabbits with it as they 

 sat out in the rides in summer nibbling the grass. 

 The pin-fire, I should say, is deader to-day by far 

 than the old muzzle-loader ; it had, perhaps, one 

 advantage — it was very easy to tell when it was 



