While he was going on a full canter, he gave the words, “Present! fire!” and off it went, knocked him backwards, and shivered a beautiful mirror into a thousand pieces.  Oh, what a sad scene of confusion ensued!  Some of the young ladies screamed out with fright.  Miss Timid, knocked down by Dicky in falling backwards, lay on the ground bleeding at the nose.  Some were employed in picking up the pieces of glass, or pinning their handkerchiefs over the fracture, to prevent its being seen while they stayed; but such a hope was vain.

The noise brought Mr. and Mrs. Random and all the servants upstairs, who too soon found out the havoc that had been made, and demanded how it happened.  All the children would willingly have screened Dicky, because they knew he had not done it to frighten, but to amuse them.  Master Snapper, however, now thinking it was his turn, in a very ill-natured speech made the worst of the story.  But the spiteful way in which he spoke did little Dick no harm, as he seemed more rejoiced at his misfortune than sorry for Mr. Random’s loss; hence it had the effect not to increase the latter’s anger.

“Playing with balancing poles and pistols,” said Mr. Random in a stern accent to his son, “is very well in a proper place, but quite inadmissible in a room full of company.  Now, sir, what business had you to take this pistol out of my room?”

“Indeed, father,” said Dicky, crying, “I did not know it was loaded.”

“It is but last week,” continued his father, “that you were told never to take such a thing without asking, and not even then till some one had tried if it were loaded.  So many accidents have happened with firearms which have been supposed not to be loaded, that he who unguardedly shoots another ought to take a similar chance for his own life; for you know the Scripture says:  ’An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’  Think, Richard, that if I had been standing before the mirror, what would have been the consequence.  You would have shot your father!  Your mother would have died of grief, and you and Letitia have been orphans!”

“Ah, then I should have died too!” said Dicky, wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.  “But how came you to load the pistol last night, father?”

“Because,” replied his father, “I thought I heard something fall in the parlor, and the passage-door being directly after shut to in a still manner.  I loaded the pistols, thinking that thieves had broken into the house, and pushed up the sash to shoot the first that came out.”

“Then it was lucky,” said Richard, “I did not come out again, or you might have killed me; for I got up in the night to let Juno out of the shed, where I had tied her up, and she was making a sad howling.  Indeed, before I was aware, she ran into the parlor, and, as it was quite dark, I tumbled over her.”

“And broke the geranium tree,” added his father.

“Yes, I did indeed,” said Dicky, “but I did not go to do it.  After that I turned Juno into the yard, and this I dare say is all the noise you heard.”