_Taking Aim._—The best shots do not take aim by sighting along the barrel of the pistol, holding it out at arm’s length after the manner of the wooden figure standing in front of the city shooting-gallery. They do not close one eye and turn sideways to the object of aim like the ideal duelist, but they hold out the pistol, look at the object (not the pistol), with both eyes open, and blaze away, usually putting the bullet about where they want it to go. There is really no aim-taking in the case, any more than there is in the case of a boy playing at marbles. Indeed, shooting a pistol to the best advantage is very much on the same principle as shooting a marble. The boy takes the marble properly between his thumb and first finger, holds out his hand in the direction of the marble to be shot at, but considerably below his line of vision, looks at the object-marble with both eyes open and “flips” in obedience to the promptings of a kind of unconscious calculation as to distance, force at command, effect of gravitation, and so on. The marble “flipped” curves out on its way, and, if shot from the hand of a skillful player, strikes its mark with astonishing certainty. Just so with the bullet sent from the pistol; under the management of a skillful performer it goes in obedience to an unconscious calculation, and not in obedience to the squinting of one eye along the barrel. Sight-taking won’t do in either case; the good marble player would be a hopeless failure if he held up his arm to his line of vision and took sight every time he went to “shoot”—the pistol-shooter who performs upon the same plan is invariably a marksman of sterling uncertainty, to say the least. _Cane Aiming._—Some people are so deficient in the species of calculation necessary to successful pistol-shooting, on the plan suggested in the foregoing, that they cannot do much at it. Such as these have some excuse for taking sight, but holding the pistol out at arm’s length and sighting along the barrel or through its “sights” rarely gives them more than very little certainty. The best method of actually taking sight with a pistol is performed in connection with a rod some three feet long—usually with a walking cane. Grasp the grip of the pistol in the right hand, in the usual way, and take the cane in the left hand. Bring the handle of the cane up against the shoulder like the breech of a gun, pass the pistol down along the side of it till the barrel reaches the left hand, and both hands are in easy position. Hold the cane between the thumb and first finger of the left hand, letting them pass beyond it and grip the barrel of the pistol between the end of the thumb and the turned-up end of the finger. Let the thumb and first finger of the right hand also grip the cane beyond the “grip” of the pistol. The aim of the pistol should range a little to the right of the direction pointed by the cane, which it will very naturally do.