rather than a pull to it, and they will
soon come to give that pressure at the very moment when the first finger
gets on the mark aimed at. Now try it half a dozen times with the pistol
unloaded, and after pressing the trigger keep your hand and arm in as
nearly the same position, so as to see if it is pointing truly at the
mark. Very good! Now try with the left hand. There, you see, that hand
is not so accustomed to its work, and though you might have hit the
target, I doubt if either of the shots would have struck the inner
circle. Now we will try with the pistol loaded."

Six shots were fired alternately with the right and left hand. Those of
the former were all within a few inches of the bull's-eye, while none of
the others went wide of the outside.

"Very good, indeed," the gunsmith said. "I don't hesitate to say that in
a very short time you will become a fair shot, and at the end of three
months, if you practise regularly, a first-class one. Your hand is very
steady, your eye true, and you have plenty of nerve. Now, sir, I should
advise you to keep that unloaded pistol in the drawer of your table, and
whenever you have nothing else to do, spend five minutes in taking quick
aims at marks on the wall, using your hands alternately. Now, Captain
Lister, will you try a few shots?"

Taking a steady aim, Captain Lister put his bullets almost every time
into the bull's-eye, but, to Frank's surprise, when he came to try
quick firing in the way he had himself done, the captain's shooting was
much less accurate than his own.

"It is a question of eye," the gunsmith said next day, when Frank was
alone with him. "You see Captain Lister's shooting was fair when he took
a steady aim, but directly he came to fire as he would in action, and
that without the disturbing influences of excitement and of the motion
of his horse, he was nowhere. He did not even once hit the target in
firing with his left hand. He would certainly have missed his man and
would have got cut down a moment later, and even with his right hand his
shooting was very wild."

Captain Lister himself was evidently disconcerted at finding how useless
his target practice would be to him in the field, and, two or three
times in the next week, went with Frank to practise. He improved with
his right hand, but did not seem to obtain any accuracy in firing with
his left, while Frank, at the end of a month, came to shoot as well with
one hand as with the other.

F