shootin' craps any time," says I.

"Really?" says he.

Then he goes on with his tale, givin' me all the partic'lars, so I
wouldn't make any batty moves. And say, they can think up some queer
stunts, hangin' around the club of an afternoon and lookin' out at
Fifth-ave. through the small end of a glass. This was one of them real
clubby dreams. It started by Mr. Robert countin' himself in on a debate
that he didn't know the beginning of.

"When they asked me if I could do it, I said, 'Of course I can,'" says
he, "and then I asked what it was."

The bunch had been gassin' about an old gun hangin' over the fireplace.
It was one of these old-timers, like they tell about Daniel Boone's
havin', in the Nickel Libr'ies, the kind you load with a stove poker.
Flintlocks--that's it! They was wonderin' if there was anyone left that
could take a relic like that out in the woods and hit anything besides
the atmosphere. And the first thing Mr. Robert knows he has been joshed
into bettin' a hatful of yellowbacks that he can take old Injun killer
out and bring back enough deer meat to feed the crowd--and him knowin'
no more about that sort of act than a one-legged man does about skatin'!
They gives him two weeks to do it in.

That wa'n't the worst of it, though, accordin' to him. They passes the
word around until everyone that knows him is on the broad grin. The joke
is handed across billiard tables between shots, and is circulated around
the boxes at the opera. It's the best ever; for Mr. Robert has never
hunted anything livelier than a Welsh rabbit, after the show.

He's a boy that likes to make good, though. He never makes a brag; but
he boxes up that old shootin' iron and drops out of sight. 'Way up in
the woods somewhere he digs up an old b'gosh artist that was brought up
with one of them guns in his hand, and he takes a private course. After
he's used up a keg of powder shootin' at tin cans they start out to find
where the deers roost. They find 'em, too. Mr. Robert is so rattled that
he misses the one he aims at; but he bores a tunnel through another in
the next lot.

Course, he thinks he's got a cinch then. He hustles to the nearest flag
station and spends eight dollars sendin' telegrams to the bunch,
invitin' 'em to a venison feed at the club. Then he has his game sewed
up neat in meal bags and expressed to John Doe, Jersey City. See how
cute he was? He'd heard about the game laws by that time; so he lays his
plans to duc