SHOOTING EXTRAORDINARY. 30! 



for anything, but he contended that it did 

 count, because we had agreed that if I fired or 

 shot at a potato it would reckon, but I was 

 not bound to shoot at any potato thrown up, 

 I might, instead, let it alone and have it 

 thrown up again. 



" Never mind," said I, anxious to avoid any 

 ill feeling. " I can win my bet, now, but be 

 careful and load right in future, Humphries." 

 So I went on shooting, but at the seventieth 

 shot I missed again, entirely through my own 

 foolhardiness. I had blown many of the 

 potatoes all to bits in the air, so that the 

 fragments could not be collected together, and 

 this made me too self confident and careless. 

 When the seventieth potato was thrown up it 

 fell three or four yards behind me, being badly 

 thrown and everybody cried out: " Don't 

 shoot, Wilkins." It was impossible to bend 

 my back enough to shoot such a distance 

 behind me, and I ought to have left it, and 

 had it thrown up again. I did shoot, however, 

 missed it, and so lost my bet. 



Although I had now lost my wager, the 



