“Excellent!” said Sugarlips—­“But I think I could hit it.”

“What?”

“Why, the stile to be sure.”

“Keep quiet, can’t you—­Now for it—­” and, trembling with eagerness, his hand pulled the trigger, but no report followed.  “The deuce is in the gun,” cried he, lowering it, and examining the lock; “What can ail it?”

“Why, I’ll be shot if that ain’t prime,” exclaimed Sugarlips, laughing outright.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve only forgot the priming—­that’s all.”

“There’s a pretty fellow, you are, for a sportsman.”

“Well, it’s no matter as it happens; for, though ’Time and tide wait for no man,’ a sparrow tied must, you know.  There! that will do.”

“Sure you put the shot in now?”

“If you put the shot into Dicky as surely, he’ll never peck groundsel again, depend on it.”

Again the “murderous tube” was levelled; Sugarlips backed against an adjoining wall, with a nervous adhesiveness that evidently proved him less fearful of a little mortar than a great gun!

“That’s right; out of the way, Sugarlips; I am sure I shall hit him this time.”  And no sooner had he uttered this self-congratulatory assurance (alas! not life-assurance!) than a report (most injurious to the innocent cock-sparrow) was heard in the neighbourhood!

“Murder!—­mur-der!” roared a stentorian voice, which made the criniferous coverings of their craniums stand on end

“Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.”

In an instant the sportsman let fall his gun, and Sugarlips ran affrighted towards the stile.  He found it really “vox et preterea nihil;” for a few feathers of the bird alone were visible:  he had been blown to nothing; and, peeping cautiously round the angle of the wall, he beheld a portly gentleman in black running along with the unwieldy gait of a chased elephant.

“Old Flank’em, of the Finishing Academy, by jingo!” exclaimed Sugarlips.  “It’s a mercy we didn’t finish him!  Why, he must actually have been on the point of turning the corner.  I think we had better be off; for, if the old dominie catches us, he will certainly liberate our sparrows, and —­put us in the cage!”

But, where’s the spoil?”

“Spoil, indeed!” cried Sugarlips; “you’ve spoiled him nicely.  I’ve an idea, Tom, you were too near, as the spendthrift nephew said of his miserly uncle.  If you can’t get an aim at a greater distance, you’d never get a name as a long shot—­that’s my mind.”

PRECEPT.

Uncle Samson was a six-bottle man.  His capacity was certainly great, whatever might be said of his intellect; for I have seen him rise without the least appearance of elevation, after having swallowed the customary half dozen.  He laughed to scorn all modern potations of wishy-washy French and Rhine wines—­deeming them unfit for the palate of a true-born Englishman.  Port, Sherry, and Madeira were his only tipple—­the rest, he would assert, were only fit for finger-glasses!