Thus saying, he walked to the corner, and brought out his rifle, a short heavy double barrel, with two grooves only, carrying a bitted ball of twelve to the pound, quite plain but exquisitely finished. Before proceeding, however, to load, he tried the passage of the nipple with a fine needle--three or four of which, thrust into a cork, and headed with sealing wax, formed a portion of the contents of his pouch--brushed the cone, and the inside of the hammer, carefully, and wiped them, to conclude, with a small piece of clean white kid--then measuring his powder out exactly, into a little charger, screwed to the end of his ramrod, he inverted the piece, and introduced the rod upward till the cup reached the chamber; when, righting the gun, he withdrew it, leaving the powder all lodged safely at the breech, without the loss of a single grain in the groovings. Next, he chose out a piece of leather, the finest grained kid, without a seam or wrinkle, slightly greased with the best watch-maker's oil--selected a ball perfectly round and true--laid the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre over the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum vita mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This done, he again inspected the cone, and seeing that the powder was forced quite up into sight, picked out, with the same anxious scrutiny that had marked all of his proceedings, a copper cap, which he pronounced sure to go, applied it to the nipple, crushed it down firmly, with the hammer, which he then drew back to half-cock, and bolted. Then he set the piece down by the fireside, drained his hot jorum, and... "That fellow will do his work, and no mistake," said he. "Now A--- here is my single gun"--handing to him, as he spoke, one of the handsomest Westley Richards a sportsman ever handled--"thirty-three inches, nine pounds and eleven gauge. Put in one-third above that charger, which is its usual load, and one of those green cartridges, and I'll be bound that it will execute at eighty paces; and that is more than Master Frank there can say for his Manton Rifle, at least if he loads it with bullets patched in that slovenly and most unsportsmanlike fashion." "I should like to know what the deuce you mean by slovenly and unsportsmanlike," said Frank, pulling out of his breast pocket a couple of bullets, carefully sewed up in leather--"it is the best plan possible, and saves lots of time--you see I can just shove my balls in at once, without any bother of fitting patches."