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into a mode of handling my arms with freedom 

 and decision, that I had any pretensions to be 

 called a shot. Of the necessity, indeed, and of 

 the efficacy of this actual drilling through the 

 rudiments, I am so thoroughly persuaded, that 

 any man of common adroitness and due docility 

 (presupposing a touch of the blood of a sports- 

 man in him, enough to fix his attention), who 

 never had a gun in his hand, I would engage to 

 make a better shot of, in the course of a month, 

 than the keenest undisciplined beater up of 

 game, who has been squandering his loads of 

 ammunition for twenty years together. " A 

 very promising lecture, this!" you begin to 

 exclaim; "but I shall be tired to death. Con- 

 sider, my dear sir, I am standing here in form, 

 as you call it, all this while!" True, sir; and, 

 as with your dog, it will do you good to keep 

 you there. It will make you find out the true 

 balance of your position ; that commanding sta- 

 tion upon your lower limbs, from which you may 

 be enabled to use your upper ones to most 

 advantage. However, we will relieve you from 

 your present attitude, to be renewed, and more 

 effectually wrought into easy habit, elsewhere. 

 For the present, therefore, let us turn our faces 

 homewards. " What then," you cry, " is it not 

 in the field that I am to receive your instruc- 

 tions, and to try to improve rny shot?" Mere 



