Book Description

Mr. Waddie Wimpleton, an elegant young gentleman of fifteen, by all odds the nicest young man in Centreport, was firing at a mark with a revolver. It was a very beautiful revolver, too, silver-mounted, richly chased, and highly polished in all its parts, discharging six shots at each revolution, not often at the target, in the unskilful hands of Mr. Waddie, but sometimes near enough to indicate what the marksman was shooting at. Even the target was quite an elaborate affair; and though Mr. Waddie had been shooting at it for a week, it was hardly damaged by the trial to which it had been subjected. It was two feet in diameter, having in its centre a tolerably correct resemblance of one of the optics of a bovine masculine; and this enigma, being literally interpreted, meant the bull’s eye, which Mr. Waddie was expected to hit, or at least to try to hit. Around it were several circles in black, red, yellow, green, and blue, each indicating a certain distance from the objective point of the shooter. There were a few holes in the target within these circles, but the central eye was not put out, and still glared defiance at the ambitious marksman. Mr. Waddie Wimpleton had everything he wanted, and therefore never wanted anything he had. There was no end to the ponies, sail-boats, row-boats, guns, pistols, fishing-rods, and other sporting gear, which came into his possession, and of which he soon became weary. His father was as rich as an East-Indian prince, and Mr. Waddie being an only son, though there were two daughters who partially “put his nose out of joint,” his paternal parent had labored industriously to spoil the child from babyhood. I am forced to acknowledge that he succeeded even better than he intended. Mr. Waddie was always waiting and watching for a new sensation. A magnificent kite, of party-colored silk, had evidently occupied his attention during the earlier hours of the morning, and it now lay neglected on the ground, the line stretched off in the direction of the lake. The young gentleman had become tired of the plaything, and when I approached him he was blazing away at the target with the revolver, at the rate of six shots in three seconds. I halted at a respectful distance from the marksman. He was not shooting at me, but I regarded this as the very reason why he would be likely to hit me. If he had been aiming at me, I should have approached him with more confidence. Keeping well in the rear of the young gentleman, I came within hailing distance of him. I did not belong to the “upper-ten” of Centreport, and I could not be said to be familiarly acquainted with him. My father was the engineer in his father’s steam-flouring mills, and a person of my humble connections was of no account in his estimation. But I am forced to confess that I had not that awe and respect for Mr. Waddie which wealth and a lofty social position demand of the humble classes. I had the audacity to approach the young scion of an influential house; and it was audacious, considered in reference to his pistol, if not to his social position.