the immaculate Rupert. "Let me see your
gun, Willis!"

He took the Greener, snapped it open to see if it was loaded, then
winked at Chickering.

The members of the Yale Gun Club were rapidly coming on the ground,
together with a number of noted New Haven shots and others interested in
trap shooting. Browning and Rattleton appeared, and Diamond, Dismal, and
several others of Merry's set were seen approaching.

"I thought Bart Hodge was sick?" said Tilton Hull. "But I see he is out
again."

"When I heard he wath thick I hoped he would never get well. He ith a
howwid cwecher! Whenever I go near him he thnapth at me like a bulldog."

"As if you were a bulldog?" queried Skelding, who at times seemed to
delight in teasing certain members of this delectable set.

"The idea!" exclaimed Ollie Lord indignantly, putting a hand caressingly
on Veazie's shoulder. "A bulldog! If Veazie is anything, he is like the
cunning little dog I had once. It was the darlingest little poodle! and
I simply loved it!"

"Just fawncy!" sniffed Willis Paulding.

But Lew Veazie seemed pleased. He put up a hand to touch the caressing
arm.

"You're another, Ollie!" he beamed. "I always did like poodles!"

"A pair of poodles!" said Skelding, and again winked meaningly at
Rupert, who snatched the cap from the head of Julian Ives and flung it
into the air. Skelding took a snap-shot at it as it fell.

"If that cap is damaged," said Ives, smoothing his precious bang which
the brisk breeze began to flirt about, "I'll make you fellows pay for
it. That's flat!"

But Julian's alarm was premature. Not a shot had touched it.

The members of the Chickering set continued the delightful sport of
snatching hats and caps from each other's heads and shooting at them
with Paulding's fine English gun; but the only damage done was by the
falls the articles received, for not a shot touched any of them.

"Of course, fellahs, a moor cock doesn't fly that way," Willis
drawlingly explained, in extenuation of the poor shooting. "He doesn't
go right up and down, you 'now. He has wings, don't you 'now, and flies
straight away, like a shot. I could hit a grouse without any trouble,
but this kind of shooting! The best shot in England would be bothered
with it."

"We'll have a try at the clay pigeons and blackbirds soon," Chickering
comfortingly promised.

"But, gwathious, I've twied them, and they're harder to hit than thethe
are! I could do better if I could onl