|
|
|||||||
Marrakai: In reply to: Indeed? I wish you would tell that to my experimental SMLE sporter... It shoots 270-grainers fine at about 2150, but the 285-gr Grand Slams.... are sideways with 2-foot groups at 100M. As I did not want to believe you were inviting me to address an inanimate object, I chose to respond as though you were speaking humorously, but did want the information. In addition, you had quoted a statement of mine as though you found it incredible, inaccurate, or inapplicable to the case you described. As I take some trouble to speak only from within the bounds of what I know, and never to tell anyone more than that, I endeavoured to explain the facts to you, with as complete supporting information as I thought necessary or useful. It is clear that you were not convinced that I spoke the truth. Very well. I am satisfied that the Unbiased Reader of this exchange can decide for himself whether the information I provided is pertinent, accurate, and useful in explaining the problems you reported. As for deterioration of tone of the thread, I strongly deny having exceeded the usages of gentlemanly discourse, though recognizing (as coming from old, genteel Southern stock) that lack of sufficient care in one's utterances can also result in the issuance of a demand for satisfaction - either in the form of acceptable explanation and/or apology, or of the kind that calls for reference to the Clonmel Code, the services of seconds, and an early-morning appointment upon mutually-agreed grounds. I have done you the courtesy (in gentlemanly fashion) of overlooking (up to this point) your cavalier dismissal of my statements and implied aspersions cast on my expertise - no more! My parliamentaire(s) will call upon you or the representative(s) you shall name with my formal demand for immediate satisfaction, and a listing of the particulars in which I deem you have offended. As we have never met, such persons as I dispatch will, of course, be in possession of that documentation which will establish my Station (my Commission, Letters of Introduction, &c.) as a Gentleman: they will, of course, require no less from you. If, as a Gentleman, you refuse satisfaction, (and cannot furnish satisfactory proofs of infirmity, prior undertaking under oath of honor to abstain from violence, or membership in some well-established pacifist sect, such as the Quakers), I will be obliged to immediately have you Posted in all the Leading Coffee-Houses and Gentlemen's Clubs - you would, of course, be Utterly Ruined and Barred from Polite Society Immediately and Forever. If, on the other hand (and I do not wish to give offense, but, as I said, we have never met) you prove to be other than a gentleman, I shall be forced to the distasteful but necessary step of hiring Common Ruffians to Punish you in the Public Precincts, so that you and other Impertinent Fellows may, in future, be mindful of your Proper Place. mhb - Mike; KP, CQ, PLO, SOP, PDQ, SOL, &c., &c. |