Many manuals have been published for the edification of beginners in the art of shooting.  If that art can indeed be acquired by reading, there is no reason why any youth, whose education has been properly attended to, should not be perfectly proficient in it without having fired a single shot.  But, Mr. Punch has noticed in all these volumes a grave defect.  In none of them is any instruction given which shall enable a man to obtain a conversational as well as a merely shooting success.  Every pursuit has its proper conversational complement.  The Farmer must know how to speak of crops and the weather in picturesque and inflammatory language; the Barrister must note, for use at the dinner-table, the subtle jests of his colleagues, the perplexity of stumbling witnesses, and the soul-stirring jokes of Judges; the Clergyman must babble of Sunday-schools and Choir-practices.  Similarly, a Shooter must be able to speak of his sport and its varied incidents.  To be merely a good shot is nothing.  Many dull men can be that.  The great thing, surely, is to be both a good shot and a cheerful light-hearted companion, with a fund of anecdotes and a rich store of allusions appropriate to every phase of shooting. Mr. Punch ventures to hope that the hints he has here put together, may be of value to all who propose to go out and “kill something” with a gun.

THE GUN.

No subject offers a greater variety of conversation than this.  But, of course, the occasion counts for a good deal.  It would be foolish to discharge it (metaphorically speaking) at the head of the first comer.  You must watch for your opportunity.  For instance, guns ought not to be talked about directly after breakfast, before a shot has been fired.  Better wait till after the shooting-lunch, when a fresh start is being made, say for the High Covert half a mile away.  You can then begin after this fashion to your host:—­“That’s a nice gun of yours, CHALMERS.  I saw you doing rare work with it at the corner of the new plantation this morning.”  CHALMERS is sure to be pleased.  You not only call attention to his skill, but you praise his gun, and a man’s gun is, as a rule, as sacred to him as his pipe, his political prejudices, his taste in wine, or his wife’s jewels.  Therefore, CHALMERS is pleased.  He smiles in a deprecating way, and says, “Yes, it’s not a bad gun, one of a pair I bought last year.”

“Would you mind letting me feel it?”

“Certainly not, my dear fellow here you are.”

You then interchange guns, having, of course, assured one another that they are not loaded.  Having received CHALMERS’s gun, you first appear to weigh it critically.  Then, with an air of great resolution, you bring it to your shoulder two or three times in rapid succession, and fire imaginary shots at a cloud, or a tuft of grass.  You now hand it back to CHALMERS, observing, “By Jove, old chap, it’s beautifully balanced!  It comes up splendidly.  Suits me better than my own.”  CHALMERS, who will have been going through a similar pantomime with your gun, will make some decently complimentary remark about it, and each of you will think the other a devilish knowing and agreeable fellow.