CHARLES CARRINGTON, ESQ. 95 



me to indulge in my proclivities. I now took to 

 shooting, and rather gave fishing the go-by. 



I believe I tormented every gunmaker in the 

 West End to death. I was continually chopping 

 and changing, inventing fresh heel-plates to the 

 " stocks." I would have a thick one of horn for a 

 thin coat, and a thin one of metal for a thick coat. 

 Then I had them made with springs to diminish 

 the recoil. I was laughed at by every one who 

 knew anything about the matter ; but I was so 

 eaten up by self-conceit that I imagined no one 

 was cm fait at guns but myself, and would take 

 no advice. My shooting was not what a sports- 

 man would call " good form " ; but this I did not 

 believe. 



" Dash it, Muster Carrington," said an old 

 Somersetshire farmer to me one day ; " always 

 a-firing into the brown on 'em, and mizzing the 

 lot. It can't be the gun, or because you wear 

 gig-lamps. You're no shot, zur, and never will 

 be ; " but I laughed at the old fellow's ignorance. 

 Eather rich that. I, with one of Grant's best 

 guns, not a shot — rubbish ! But I determined I 

 would make myself a shot ; so I went over to 

 Ireland to an old friend of mine, who lived in a 

 wild, remote part of Galway. He was a first-class 

 sportsman ine very way ; took great pains with 



