On this occasion he had provided himself with a large bundle of darts, but--wise man!--they were not poisoned, and it therefore mattered little whether they were wasted or not.

I believe that on this day I made some little progress; at all events, my teacher remarked that before long I would be able to hit a bird.

This made me smile and answer that if he could place me within twenty yards of a bird not smaller than a small man I might manage to touch it with an arrow.
This speech had a very unexpected and remarkable effect.

He stopped short in his walk, stared at me wildly, then grinned, and finally burst into a roar of laughter, which was no bad imitation of the howling monkey's performance, and smote his naked thighs with tremendous energy.
At length recovering himself, he asked whether a small woman was not the same as a small man, and being answered in the affirmative, went off into a second extravagant roar of laughter.
Thinking it was easy to tickle him while he continued in this mood, I began making any number of feeble jokes--feeble, but quite as good as the one which had provoked such outrageous merriment--for it amused me to see him acting in this unusual way.

But they all failed of their effect--there was no hitting the bull's-eye a second time; he would only stare vacantly at me, then grunt like a peccary--not appreciatively--and walk on.