"Well," said I, "that's explained away very happily. What I saw was only
something else and what I heard was something else too. You put the
alternatives so clearly, Jack, that one can't help being convinced. And
what about the shooting affair? I only heard a thingumabob and saw a
what-you-may-call-it, I suppose?"
"My dear Roger, I only want to test the alternatives and see what _can't_
be explained away. Have you ever been under fire before?"
"No, but I've seen pictures of it in the illustrated papers."
"Dash it, be serious!" said he. "You have no doubt whatever that somebody
blazed either at you or at something else from behind that wall?"
"Or at something else? What do you mean?"
"There weren't any duck about, or anything of that kind? I've known a
wild shot blaze both barrels within six inches of my own head and explain
he had never noticed me."
"I was rather too preoccupied to notice whether there were any duck there
when he began," said I, "but unless they were deaf duck there certainly
wouldn't be any left after he'd loosed off his first bullet. Besides one
doesn't usually shoot duck with bullets."
"One might with a rook rifle."
"I admit that one might; also that a very excitable person might go on
shooting after the duck had gone. But do you really mean to tell me,
Jack, that that explanation satisfies you?"
"I don't say that it does absolutely, and I quite admit that the
weakness of my explanations is that your story requires three of them;
none being perfectly satisfactory.
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