I was once acquainted with a _famous shooter_ whose name was William Ewing. He was a barrister of Philadelphia, but became far more renowned by his gun than by his law cases. We spent scores of days together a-shooting, and were extremely well matched, I having excellent dogs and caring little about my reputation as a shot, his dogs being good for nothing, and he caring more about his reputation as a shot than as a lawyer. The fact which I am going to relate respecting this gentleman, ought to be a warning to young men, how they become enamoured of this species of vanity. We had gone about ten miles from our home, to shoot where partridges were said to be very plentiful. We found them so. In the course of a November day, he had, just before dark, shot, and sent to the farmhouse, or kept in his bag, _ninety-nine_ partridges. He made some few _double shots_, and he might have a _miss_ or two, for he sometimes shot when out of my sight, on account of the woods. However, he said that he killed at every shot; and, as he had counted the birds, when we went to dinner at the farmhouse and when he cleaned his gun, he, just before sun-set, knew that he had killed _ninety-nine_ partridges, every one upon the wing, and a great part of them in woods very thickly set with largish trees. It was a grand achievement; but, unfortunately, he wanted to make it _a hundred_. The sun was setting, and, in that country, darkness comes almost at once; it is more like the going out of a candle than that of a fire; and I wanted to be off, as we had a very bad road to go, and as he, being under strict petticoat government, to which he most loyally and dutifully submitted, was compelled to get home that night, taking me with him, the vehicle (horse and gig) being mine. I, therefore, pressed him to come away, and moved on myself towards the house (that of old John Brown, in Bucks county, grandfather of that General Brown, who gave some of our whiskered heroes such a rough handling last war, which was waged for the purpose of "deposing James Madison"), at which house I would have stayed all night, but from which I was compelled to go by that watchful government, under which he had the good fortune to live. Therefore I was in haste to be off. No: he would kill the _hundredth_ bird! In vain did I talk of the bad road and its many dangers for want of moon. The poor partridges, which we had scattered about, were _calling_ all around us; and, just at this moment, up got one under his feet, in a field in which the wheat was three or four inches high. He shot and _missed_. "That's it," said he, running as if to _pick up_ the bird. "What!" said I, "you don't think you _killed_, do you? Why there is the bird now, not only alive, but _calling_ in that wood;" which was at about a hundred yards distance. He, in that _form of words_ usually employed in such cases, asserted that he shot the bird and saw it fall; and I, in much about the same form of words, asserted,