.
    »Missed the target altogether!« shouted the man whose duty it was to mark
the bullets, and who had little relish for the Quarter Master's tedious science
- »Missed the target!«
    »It cannot be,« cried Muir, his face flushing equally with indignation and
shame; »it cannot be, adjutant, for I never did so awkward a thing in my life. I
appeal to the ladies for a juster judgment.«
    »The ladies shut their eyes when you fired,« exclaimed the regimental wag -
»Your preparations alarmed them.«
    »I will na believe such a calumny of the leddies, nor sic' a reproach on my
own skill,« returned the Quarter Master, growing more and more Scotch, as he
warmed with his feelings; »it's a conspiracy to rob a meritorious man of his
dues.«
    »It's a dead miss, Muir,« said the laughing Lundie, »and ye'll just sit down
quietly with the disgrace.«
    »No - no - Major,« Pathfinder at length observed - »the Quarter Master is a
good shot, for a slow one, and a measured distance, though nothing extr'ornary,
for raal sarvice. He has covered Jasper's bullet, as will be seen, if any one
will take the trouble to examine the target.«
    The respect for Pathfinder's skill, and for his quickness and accuracy of
sight, was so profound and general, that the instant he made this declaration,
the spectators began to distrust their own opinions, and a dozen rushed to the
target, in order to ascertain the fact. There, sure enough, it was found that
the Quarter Master's bullet had gone through the hole made by Jasper's, and
that, too, so accurately as to require a minute examination to be certain of the
circumstance; which, however, was soon clearly established by discovering one
bullet over the other, in the stump against which the target was placed.
    »I told ye, ladies, ye were about to witness the influence of science on
gunnery,« said the Quarter Master, advancing towards the staging occupied by the
females. »Major Duncan derides the idea of mathematics entering into target
shooting, but I tell him, philosophy colours, and enlarges, and improves, and
dilates, and explains every thing that belongs to human life, whather it be a
shooting match or a sermon. In a word philosophy is philosophy, and that is
saying all that the subject requires.«
    »I trust you exclude