Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/68

58 "Coffin!" cried Pepton, "why, my dear fellow, that is not a coffin. That is my ascham."

"Ascham?" I exclaimed. What is that?"

"Come and look at it," he said, when the men had set it on end against the wall; "it is an upright closet, or receptacle for an archer's armament. Here is a place to stand the bow; here are supports for the arrows and quivers; here are shelves and hooks, on which to lay or hang every thing the merry man can need. And you see, moreover, that it is lined with green plush, and that the door fits tightly, so that it can stand anywhere, and there need be no fear of draughts or dampness affecting my bow. Isn't it a perfect thing? You ought to get one."

I admitted the perfection, but agreed no further. I had not the income of my good Pepton.

Pepton was, indeed, most wonderfully well equipped, and yet, little did those dear old ladies think, when they carefully dusted and reverentially gazed at the bunches of arrows, the arm-bracers, the gloves, the grease-pots, and all the rest of the paraphernalia of archery, as it hung around Pepton's room; or when they afterward allowed a particular friend to peep at it, all arranged so orderly within the ascham; or when they looked with sympathetic, loving admiration on the beautiful polished bow, when it was taken out of its bag,—little did they think, I say, that Pepton was the very poorest shot in the club. In all the surface of the much perforated targets of the club, there was scarcely a hole that he could put his hand upon his heart and say he made.