156 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



leather, the finest grained kid, without a seam or wrinkle, 

 slightly greased with the best watch-maker's oil — selected 

 a ball perfectly round and true — laid the patch upon the 

 muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre over 

 the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum 

 vitoe mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, 

 with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady 

 thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This 

 done, he again inspected the cone, and seeing that the 

 powder was forced quite up into sight, picked out, with 

 the same anxious scrutiny that had marked all of his 

 proceedings, a copper cap, which he pronounced sure to 

 go, applied it to the nipple, crushed it down firmly, with 

 the hammer, which he then drew back to half-cock, and 

 bolted. Then he set the piece down by the fireside, 

 drained his hot jorum, and — 



"That fellow will do his work, and no mistake," said he. 



"Now A , here is my single gun" — handing to him, as 



he spoke, one of the handsomest Westley Richards a sports- 

 man ever handled — "thirty -three inches, nine pounds and 

 eleven gauge. Put in one-third above that charger, which 

 is its usual load, and one of those green cartridges, and 

 I'll be bound that it will execute at eighty paces ; and that 

 is more than Master Frank there can say for his Manton 

 Rifle, at least if he loads it with bullets patched in that 

 slovenly and most unsportsmanlike fashion." 



"I should like to know what the deuce you mean by 

 slovenly and unsportsmanlike," said Frank, pulling out of 

 his breast pocket a couple of bullets, carefully sewed up 

 in leather — "it is the best plan possible, and saves lots of 

 time — you see I can just shove my balls in at once, with- 

 out any bother of fitting patches." 



"Yes," replied Harry, "and five to one the seam, which, 

 however neatly it is drawn, must leave a slight ridge, will 

 cross the direction of the grooving, and give the ball a 

 counter movement; either destroving altogether the ro- 

 tatory motion communicated by the rifling, or causing it 

 to take a direction quite out of the true line; accordingly 

 as the counteraction is conveyed near the breech, or near 

 the muzzle of the piece." 



"Will so trifling a cause produce so powerful an effect?" 

 inquired the Commodore. 



