n
cathedral towns.

After three months the gunmaker no longer accompanied Frank to his
shooting-gallery.

"It would be robbing you to go on with you any longer, Mr. Wyatt. When a
man can turn round, fire on the instant and hit a penny nine times out
of ten at a distance of twelve paces, there is no one can teach him
anything more. You have the best eye of any gentleman I ever came
across, and in the twenty years that I have been here I have had
hundreds of officers at this gallery, many of them considered crack
shots. But I should go on practising, if I were you, especially with
your left hand. It is not quite so good as the right yet, although very
nearly so. I will come down once a week or so and throw up a ball to you
or spin a penny in the air; there is nothing like getting to hit a
moving object. In the meantime you can go on practising at that plummet
swinging from the string. You can do that as well by yourself as if I
were with you, for when you once set it going it will keep on for five
minutes. It is not so good as throwing up a penny, because it makes a
regular curve; but shooting, as you do, with your back to it, and so not
able to tell where it will be when you turn round, that don't so much
matter."

"What is the best shooting you ever heard of?"

"The best shot I ever heard tell of was Major Rathmines. He could hit a
penny thrown up into the air nineteen times out of twenty."

"Well, I will go on practising until I can do that," Frank said. "If a
thing is worth doing it is worth doing well."

"And you will do it, Mr. Wyatt; there is nothing you could not do with
practice."

"There is one thing I wish you would do for me--that figure you have got
painted as a target is ridiculous. I wish you would get some one who has
an idea of painting to do another figure. I want it painted, not
standing square to me, but sideways, as a man stands when he fights a
duel. I want it drawn with the arm up, just in the same position that a
man would stand in firing. I hope I shall never be called upon to fight
a duel. I think it is a detestable practice; but unfortunately it is so
common that no one can calculate on keeping out of it--especially in the
army."

"Well, sir, you need not be afraid of fighting a duel, for you fire so
mighty quick that you would be certain of getting in the first shot,
and if you got first shot there would be an end of it."

"Yes, but that would be simple murder--neither more nor less