United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge. Looking at this, John smiled. When he smiled he became good-looking.
"I can remember when, ten or fifteen years ago, I used to steal out of the house in the darkness and bicycle down to the marsh with a twenty-bore gun, on the chance of an odd shot." "And I suppose," his mother went on, "after spending half the night wading about in the salt water, you spent the other half talking to that terrible Mr. Furley." "Quite right.
A twelve-bore is the best gun for use in China, from the fact that cartridges are everywhere procurable, whereas for other sizes they have frequently to be imported from home, although I must admit that a twenty-bore is preferable for snipe-shooting in warm weather, owing to the lightness of both gun and cartridges.
Only a week before, Uncle John, on his arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather case and a key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector, twenty-bore gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels. The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it back into his pocket, and strode forward and upward.
After breakfast the boys explored the quaint old house; and John showed Caesar the twenty-bore gun, and promised his guest much rabbit-shooting, and two days' hunting, at least, with the New Forest Hounds, and some pike-fishing, and possibly an encounter with a big grayling which, later, the boys saw walloping about in the Test above Broadlands a splendid fish, once hooked by John, and lost a three-pounder, of course.
Word Of The Day