CHAPTER IV 
THE COMPLETE GUN-ROOM 
t 
IF a gun is a friend to a man, if he knows and cares all about 
its personality and ways, then that goes some way to prove that 
he is a genuine sportsman—and in the particular instance of 
this book, a true Wildfowler. 
One’s guns are one’s friends. They have been companions 
of many night watches in darkling and dawn, in cold moonlit 
midnights, bitter winds, ice-cold hours, and the roaring 
tempests of God. One loves their gracefulness (to many of 
us a perfect gun is the most beautiful thing that skilled handi- 
craft can produce), and utter efficiency, combined with perfect 
execution, is indeed a wonder of this day. 
The furious passions of chemic things are let loose by the 
sure action of the most studious inventions, by the supremest 
nicety of mechanism, refined and brought to perfection by 
hundreds of brains and innumerable experiments, and to say 
that a gun is a thermo-dynamic engine by which the potential 
energy of the explosive is converted into the kinetic energy of 
the projectile, is merely to define and not describe a gun. 
Sporting weapons require, and receive from all 
paeaptng good sportsmen, the very greatest care and special- 
ised treatment. A good gun which might last the 
best part of a lifetime is as easily ruined by bad usage as 
a watch. The gun-room and its appliances are of supreme 
importance. 
By far the best way in which to keep guns is in a special 
cupboard made for the purpose, in which the guns stand fitted 
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