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next to me. "Uff, now I'm better but what a fright I was!" He said.

"Scary? And why?" 

"You are unconscious. So I haven't spoken of this before, so as not to worry you. I know you've never picked up a rifle in your hand and I told Papa that it seemed risky to put you right in front of correos, to at least do some shooting before. Macche*, you know what Papa is like when he decides that you can do something: he said you would have shot even better than them, as long as you wanted to. I expected him to be greatly disappointment and on your first pitch I made the sign of the cross, I confess, that when I saw the pigeon fall down I thought it was the shameless luck of the beginner. But I was happy all the same because it was at least a decent start. Frankly, it was a surprise when I saw that you hit the second one and then finish with an even higher average than Mary and me..."

"I just followed Papa's instructions," I observed laboriously sucking a leg of morro-crab. "But you shoot well too."

"Ha ha!" Gianfranco burst out laughing. "Do you know how I do it? Do not tell anyone and especially my mother, but after so much shooting in the desert I can no longer see clearly from that eye . So I try to follow the noise of the cage with the utmost attention, luckily the ears still work, and at the sound of the wings I close my eyes, I say to myself  'good luck!' and I shoot."

"Then you are the best of all, if you shoot with your eyes closed!" 

"I care little about myself. I just hope that after your luck as a beginner you don't come to disappoint Papa."

To Gianfranco's relief, my brazen-luck-as-a-beginner continued. He was only disturbed by one episode. I had smacked a pigeon that began to zigzag up and down and to give it the final blow I had followed it with the rifle, calmly, and only when...

* "No way"