Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/315
"How so?"
"You have had doe pistol practice?"
"I have not."
"You dever, perhaps, fired off a pistol id your life?"
"I never did."
"Well, thed, let be tell you this: if you fire at his head, you'll cut the groudd from udder hib: you bay, perhaps, take off the sole of wud of his boots, but the chadces are ted to wud id favour of your cutting up the turf; whereas, if you bake ad attebpt to fire id the air, add you do but fire straight, you'll be as safe to put the bullet through his head, as if the buzzle of the pistol were placed betweed his eyes; for, of course, you'll have to deal with hair triggers, add if you have, and you raise the pistol, off it goes sobe codsiderable tibe before you kdow where you are. Look at that pier-glass: it seebs at twelve paces to be remarkably easy to hit; but fire at it—you shall do so if you like after didder—fire right at it: you bay kdock the kdob off the todgs—you bay sbash the fedder—you bay crack the hearth-stode, or bake a sball hole id the rug—but you'll fide, udless you take a bost burderous aib, that you'll dot go dear the glass. The buzzle of a pistol, id the hadd of a dovice, is perfectly certaid to drop: just try it after didder."
"I've no desire to do so."
"Well, but thed you will see the effect!"
"My dear fellow, I've no ambition to become a duellist. I shall be able to fire as well as I wish to fire, for I'll take especial care that before I touch the trigger, the pistol shall point directly upwards. I have been grossly insulted by Sir Charles, it is true; but it is also true that when he insulted me, he imagined that I had seriously injured him. It was an error on his part: he had been deceived. I would not deprive any man of life because he happened to be labouring under a mistake."
"But Sir Charles would deprive you of life."
"If he should do so, the crime will be his, not mine."
"You will be, eved id that case, particeps cribidis. You kdow—you have, at all evedts, a right to assube—that his object is to kill you; add yet you voludtarily place yourself id a positiod to be killed! The cribe would dot be cobbitted were you dot to go out: you have id your owd hadds the power to prevedt it, add if you do dot, you are to all idtedts add purposes ad accessory."
"So are you—so is your father—and so is Mr. Scholefield! We are all accessories, in that sense: we all have the power to prevent it. But at the same time we all know that society would hold the exercise of that power to be dishonourable."
"If, thed, society thus forces a bad out, I codtedd that he is justified id firidg at his oppodedt. If I were to go out to-borrow, add I kdew that the object of by adtagodist was to kill be, I should fire as he fired, add if I killed hib I should call it justifiable hobicide. He who does dot idtedd to fire at his oppodedt has doe right to go out at all. I cad ibagide a case id which a bad would be justified id goidg out add firidg id the air: for exabple, that of a bad who had deeply idjured his friedd, add who felt it deeply, add who wished to give a tacit ackdowledg-