A blustering wind arose, and like a burly coachman on mounting his box,
took up the rain!

The two crouching friends taking advantage of the cessation in the storm,
prepared to start. But in straightening the acute angles of their legs
and arms, Mr. Sprigg's piece, by some entanglement in his protecting
garb, went off, and the barrel striking Mr. Grubb upon the os nasi,
stretched him bawling on the humid turf.

"O! Lord! I'm shot."

"O! my heye!" exclaimed the trembling Spriggs.

"O! my nose!" roared Grubb.

"Here's a go!"

"It's no go!--I'm a dead man!" blubbered Mr. Richard. Mr. Augustus
Spriggs now raised his chum upon his legs, and was certainly rather
alarmed at the sanguinary effusion.

"Vere's your hankercher?--here!--take mine,--that's it--there!--let's
look at it."

"Can you see it?" said Grubb, mournfully twisting about his face most
ludicrously, and trying at the same time to level his optics towards the
damaged gnomon.

"Yes!"

"I can't feel it," said Grubb; "it's numbed like dead."

"My gun vent off quite by haccident, and if your nose is spoilt, can't
you have a vax von?--Come, it ain't so bad!"

"A vax von, indeed!--who vouldn't rather have his own nose than all the
vax vons in the vorld?" replied poor Richard. "I shall never be able to
show my face."

"Vy not?--your face ain't touched, it's on'y your nose!"

"See, if I come out agin in an hurry," continued the wounded sportsman.
"I've paid precious dear for a day's fun. The birds vill die a nat'ral
death for me, I can tell you."

"It vos a terrible blow--certainly," said Spriggs; "but these things
vill happen in the best riggle'ated families!"

"How can that be? there's no piece, in no quiet and respectable families
as I ever seed!"

And with this very paradoxical dictum, Mr. Grubb trudged on, leading
himself by the nose; Spriggs exerting all his eloquence to make him think
lightly of what Grubb considered such a heavy affliction; for after all,
although he had received a terrible contusion, there were no bones
broken: of which Spriggs assured his friend and himself with a great deal
of feeling!

Luckily the shades of evening concealed them from the too scrutinizing
observation of the passengers they encountered on their return, for such
accidents generally excite more ridicule than commiseration.

Spriggs having volunteered his services, saw Grubb safe home to his door
in Tower Street, and placing the two guns in hi