Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/742011
We were reunited, and all you can possibly say is that it was meant to be. "The Boy was over-protective for a while. For we both know there is risk in aspiring to anything extraordinary. But we started going again, this time more broadly, to all the fabulous destinations of the world that make wingshooting so grand. And we've been going ever since. He's got better . . . well, fancier . . . guns now, but almost always he passes them by, and takes me. We've never felt plain, in any company. "For 50 years now, short the two I was lost, we've been wholly inseparable. I may be Vulcan, but I feel A-1 Special. "Strangely, I've gotten poetic in my golden years. Guess serendipity does that to you. "We've traveled and shot in all the prettiest places. Sharpies, Huns, chicken and pheasant; red legs, ptarmigan, perdiz and quail; grouse and woodcock, pigeons and doves; ducks and geese, snipe and rail. "My life has been better, these latter days, than I can begin to tell. And from experience, by the way, 2¾ - 1 1 /8 – 7½ - has been my best upland shell. "But now, after all so glad, we come again to that which is so infinitely sad. "Gone now most of his years, and the Boy is an Old Man too, and someday sooner now I will lose him, as I have lost the others. To be cast upon fate again. But not within his lifetime. Money, untold millions, he has said, can never separate us. Only death. There is more value in principle, he vows, than you can ever own in principal. "After he is gone, I do not know. Should you ever have interest, please remember. Others captured his heart, but I shared his soul. His wife, if she's still here, has said I'll be last to go. "Well, there you have it: one gun's first century. There rests the game, and there stands the score. "I'm old and worn, showing my age. My checkering's gone smooth, lost, my original colors, the browning's worn thin, I'm weathered, scratched and mellow. But it's all honest, Old Chap, and I'm still solid to the core. I can still do the job, and even yet I'm rather a handsome fellow. I'm still all Parker, and that's undeniable. They can say what they will, I'm still the "Old Reliable." "Life travels on. Who knows what to bring? "Sadness and sorrow, laughter and tears. Grant me the smallest touch of fortune, Old Friend, and I'll last another 300 years. n 30 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S