ion to give Mr. Lamb a pounding.
But they all drove home in the wagon, and just as Mrs. Lamb got done
hugging Peter a letter was handed him containing the sonnet he had
sent Julia. She returned it with the remark that it was the most
dreadful nonsense she ever read, and that she knew he hadn't courage
enough to kill himself. Then Peter went back to the store, and was
surprised to find that his employers had so little emotion as to dock
him for half a day's absence. What he wants now is to ascertain if he
cannot compel Potts to give up that watch. Potts says he has too much
respect for the memory of his unfortunate friend to part with it, but
he is really sorry now that he ordered that tombstone. On the first of
May, Peter's bleeding heart had been so far stanched as to enable him
to begin skirmishing around the affections of a girl named Smith; and
if she refuses him, he thinks that tombstone may yet come into play.
But we all have our doubts about it.

CHAPTER XVI.

_MR. FOGG AS A SPORTSMAN AND A SPOUSE_.

Game was so plenty about our neighborhood last fall that Mr. Fogg
determined to become a sportsman. He bought a double-barrel gun, and
after trying it a few times by firing it at a mark, he loaded it and
placed it behind the hall door until he should want it. A few days
later he made up his mind to go out and shoot a rabbit or two, so he
shouldered his gun and strode off toward the open country. A mile
or two from the town he saw a rabbit; and taking aim, he pulled the
trigger. The gun failed to go off. Then he pulled the other trigger,
and again the cap snapped. Mr. Fogg used a strong expression of
disgust, and then, taking a pin, he picked the nipples of the gun,
primed them with a little powder and made a fresh start. Presently
he saw another rabbit. He took good aim, but both caps snapped. The
rabbit did not see Mr. Fogg, so he put on more caps, and they snapped
too.

Then Mr. Fogg cleaned out the nipples again, primed them and leveled
the gun at a fence. The caps snapped again. Then Mr. Fogg became
furious, and in his rage he expended forty-two caps trying to make the
gun go off. When the forty-second cap missed also, Mr. Fogg thought,
perhaps, there might be something the matter with the inside of the
gun, and so he sounded the barrels with his ramrod. To his utter
dismay, he discovered that both barrels were empty. Mrs. Fogg, who is
nervous about firearms, had drawn the loads without telling Fogg.