Still it had its points, that much-abused old gun. Held straight, it was deadly enough. It had many a time carried a ball in its right barrel with sound effect; and once, in Africa, when in a moment of stress and panic the ball cartridge was slipped into the left barrel, which was alleged to be "full choke," it eased itself of the charge without bursting, although it nearly did dislocate the firer's shoulder in the recoil by way of remonstrance. And at the same time it performed most thoroughly the requisite business with the bullet.
It was one of those guns which was probably always second-hand, and it had never been a high-class weapon even in its palmy days. Even its builder had sent it out into the cold, suspicious world without the testimonial of his name. Yet the man who carried it so many miles through so many scenes, and slept by its side before camp-fires, and nursed it in his lap through many a weary hour when--well, when things were not exactly so smooth as they might have been, and grumbled at its weight under tropical suns, and swore when he missed his supper with it, and got hot when jeerers made sport of its battered ugliness,--that man, I say, would give more than one crisp note to-day if he might have it stored away at home in some dark corner near at hand, from where he could take it out at times and abuse it with rough, friendly words, as one old chum abuses another. He would like to lift it in his fingers again, and put his chin against that piece of spun yarn which was served round the stock where--pah! what nonsense is this? The gun was not fit to carry. It was absurd to go about with such a weapon, when better guns were so handy. And if (as a matter of accurate fact) it was rather more serviceable than any of the other guns in Enare, why, of course, the people up there were little better than rank barbarians, and what could be expected of their artillery?
And so at Enare the old gun remained, and forty marks exchanged hands over the transaction. We travelled thereafter the lighter by several pounds of dead weight, and we did not miss the weapon's usefulness. Even had we condescended to the murder of nursing mothers, we could barely have filled a decent game-bag with birds from one end of the country to the other. So one wished the postmaster good luck with his purchase; but many a thought went backwards after the old gun's welfare, and many a sighing hope was registered that the new owner would entreat it tenderly.