In other
words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him,
as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit,
however innocent he may be of them.
In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this
time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the
population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for
want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the
Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he
can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's
version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye,
as far as he could see the white of it.
Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing
more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster
too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant
work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did
not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in
his pocket, and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow,--a robber,
say,--without getting the muzzle under his nose.
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