Bob was waiting for him, at the front gate. He greeted his master with a sheepish, apologetic manner, as though to say:
"I didn't mean to act so silly; but you know, I can't help it."
"That's all right, Bob," comforted Ned. "I understand. You shan't go again."
Whereupon Bob whined wistfully, as much as to say:
"Well, I don't think you ought to go, then, either."
Bob, you see, was just a mite selfish in regard to Ned.
During the next week Ned went out several times with Mr. Russell, and began to feel like quite a veteran. He not only could hit stationary cans, but he learned to hit things tossed into the air. To tell the truth, he was a fine pupil.
"Ned, Mr. Russell thinks that the public won't suffer if we go ahead now and trust you alone with a gun," observed Mr. Miller, one evening, at the supper table. "He says you're learning well, and that all you need do is remember."
"I can hit a little piece of bark thrown up forty yards away," asserted Ned, confidently.
"Very good," responded his father, pushing back from the table. "But I didn't get Mr. Russell to teach you that, so much as to teach you _not_ to hit some objects more important!"
He went into the bedroom, and came back, bearing a gun case.
"How do you like it?" he said, giving it to Ned.
With feverish fingers Ned unbuckled the straps. The case had looked familiar; the gun was still more familiar.
"Say----" he burst out. "Is it mine? Did Mr. Russell give it to me? Did you buy it of him? It's the very same gun!"
"So it is," replied his father, pleased to see _him_ so pleased. "I had Mr. Russell pick it out for me the day after you and your mother and I talked together; so you've been using it all this time, and now you're acquainted with it. It's yours."
"Not yet," interrupted Mrs. Miller. "Wait a moment. Give the gun to me, Ned."
Ned wonderingly surrendered the treasure.
"Neddie," she declared, holding it behind her back, and trying not to laugh, "you can't have it unless you promise not to use that dreadful 'say' any more!"
"Or as much," restricted his mother, firmly.
With a kiss his mother restored the gun to his eager grasp.
The only personage within Ned's circle of relatives and friends who did not rejoice with him in his new gun was Bob. Poor Bob! The weapon was an eye-sore to him. When his master brought it out Bob gazed at him reproachfully, and slunk off, dejected, woebegone. No coaxing could lift his spirits, or induce him to come outside the yard, when the gun was in sight.
