Part 6 (1/2)
On the following day Jack called on the agents again, and having cooods should be despatched by the train which left for Johannesburg the next h the town in the direction of his hotel
”I wonder whether Turner was right about that revolver!” he suddenly thought, afull of sporting guns and rifles having caught his eye, and caused him to remember the conversation of the previous day
”If all these Boers are really arht come in very handy some day Yes, I will buy one, with plenty of ammunition, and see whether I cannot hide it ahere a pretty close search would not discover it”
To make up his un-shop
”I want a revolver of so which would be useful, and at the sa and heavy”
”Then you couldn't do better than take one of these Mausers,” the owner of the shop, an Englishman, replied ”They lie , and fire ten shots in rapid succession Coe specially fitted up”
Jack followed theshed behind, and here, for an hour, he practised with various pistole, finally deciding upon a Mauser
”There will be a run on that weapon soon, sir,” rely, ”and if all is true that one hears, or indeed only half one hears, the Boers have been buying a heap of them”
”Yes, I've heard that too,” replied Jack, ”and also that they take precious good care that none of the Uitlanders get hold of any”
”That's so, sir; but still, I dare say there are le in ared if fixed with a good deal of padding beneath the arm”
”Ah, I dare say!” Jack answered casually, and then left the shop
”That was a good idea,” he thought, as he walked back to the hotel, ”and I'll just see how I can ed a reel of cotton, a needle, and a seress, and then retired to his roo the coat off, he first fitted the Mauser pistol beneath the waistcoat, pushi+ng the ht armpit
”Now, all I have to do is to open the seams down each side and let them out,” he murmured ”Then I will sew on a kind of inner pocket, and as soon as it is finished I must pad the waistcoat all round with cotton-wool It will make it awfully hot, and I dare say I shall rand at sewing Still, it's got to be done, and after all, what does it ood two hours to let out the seams and add the pocket, but at last that part was completed, and he sallied out to buy some cotton-wool
Then he placed the wooden holster of the Mauser in the pocket, and arranged the wool on either side of it and between it and the waistcoat, securing it by cross stitches An hour later the other side was similarly padded, and he tried the waistcoat on
The cotton-wool he found had certainly made all the difference Both sides beneath his arood deal lance to detect that matters were not as they were meant to be Then he put on the coat, buttoned it up, and, standing in front of the glass, practised drawing the weapon
It onderful how quickly he could change hilish youth to one with a deadly Mauser, with ten bullets between himself and disaster To thrust his hand beneath his coat, touch the spring, and unbutton the flap of his hidden pocket was the work of only a ht slipped out, and the butt was in his grasp, while the holster reain
Jack practised diligently with and then without the glass, and finally, feeling satisfied that he was now prepared in case of accidents, donned his hat and went out for a walk
No one suspected hih they had noticed that he was carrying hidden arms, and even Turner, when he accidentally ran across hi beneath his arm, but once more dilated on the possibilities of trouble in the future, and urged hi
”You'd better do as I say, old chap,” he said persuasively ”Those Boers are bad 'uns to deal with at any time, but when they are aro hard with the poor Uitlander”