perhaps I might as well have one, in case either of you should lose yours.”
Mr. Preston felt ready to smile, but the speaker was looking full at him, as if in expectation thereof, and he remained perfectly serious.
The pistols having been purchased, with a good supply of ammunition, guns were brought out, and the professor invested in a couple of good useful double-barrelled fowling-pieces for himself and Lawrence; Mr. Burne watching intently the whole transaction, and ending by asking the dealer to show him one.
“You see,” he explained, “I should look odd to the people if I were not carrying the same weapons as you two, and besides I have often thought that I should like to go shooting. I don’t see why I shouldn’t; do you, Lawrence?”
“No, sir, certainly not,” was the reply: and Mr. Burne went on examining the gun before him, pulling the lever, throwing open the breech, and peeping through the barrels as if they formed a double telescope.
“Oh! that’s the way, is it?” he said. “But suppose, when the thing goes off, the shots should come out at this end instead of the other?”
“But you don’t fire it off when it’s open like that, Mr. Burne,” cried Lawrence.
“My dear boy, of course not. Do you suppose I don’t understand? You put in the cartridges like this. No, they won’t go in that way. You put them in like that, and then you pull the trigger.”
“No, no, no,” cried Lawrence excitedly. “You shut the breech first.”
“My dear boy—oh! I see. Yes, of course. Oh! that’s what you meant. Of course, of course. I should have seen that directly. Now, then, it’s all right. Loaded?”
“Sir! sir! sir!” cried the dealer, but he was too late, for the old lawyer had put the gun to his shoulder, pointing the barrel towards the door, and pulled both triggers.
The result was a deafening explosion, two puffs of smoke half filling the place, and the old gentleman was seated upon the floor.
“Good gracious, Burne!” cried the professor, rushing to him, “are you much hurt?”
Lawrence caught at the chair beside him, turning ashy pale, and gazing down at the prostrate man, while quite a little crowd of people filled the shop.
“Hurt?” cried Mr. Burne fiercely—“hurt? Hang it, sir, do you think a man at my time of life can be bumped down upon the floor like that without being hurt?”
“But are you wounded—injured?”
“Don’t I tell you, yes,” cried Mr. Burne, getting up with great difficulty. “I’m jarred all up the spinal column.”
“But not wounded?”
“Yes, I am, sir—in my self-respect. Here, help me up. Oh, dear! Oh, lor’! Gently! Oh, my back! Oh, dear! No; I can’t sit down. That’s better. Ah!”
“Would you like a doctor fetched?”
“Doctor? Hang your doctor, sir. Do you think I’ve came out here to be poisoned by a foreign doctor. Oh, bless my soul! Oh, dear me! Confound the gun! It’s a miserable cheap piece of rubbish. Went off in my hands. Anyone shot?”
“No, sir,” said the dealer quietly; “fortunately you held the muzzle well up, and the charges went out of the upper part of the door.”
“Oh! you’re there, are you?” cried Mr. Burne furiously, as he lay back in a cane chair, whose cushion seemed to be comfortable. “How dared you put such a miserable wretched piece of rubbish as that in my hands!”
The dealer made a deprecatory gesture.
“Here, clear away all these people. Be off with you. What are you staring at? Did you never see an English gentleman meet with an accident before? Oh, dear me! Oh, my conscience! Bless my heart, I shall never get over this.”
The dealer went about from one to the other of the passers-by who had crowded in, and the grave gentlemanly Turks bowed and left in the most courteous manner, while the others, a very motley assembly, showed some disposition to stay, but were eventually persuaded to go outside, and the door was closed.
“To think of me, a grave quiet solicitor, being reduced to such a position as this. I’m crippled for life. I know I am. Serves me right for coming. Here, give me a little brandy or a glass of wine.”
The latter was brought directly, and the old lawyer drank it, with the result that it seemed to make him more angry.
“Here, you, sir!” he cried to the dealer, who was most attentive; “what have you to say for yourself? It’s a wonder that I did not shoot one of my friends here. That gun ought to be destroyed.”
“My dear Burne,” said the professor, who had taken the fowling-piece and tried the locks, cocking and recocking them over and over again; “the piece seems to me to be in very perfect order.”
“Bah! stuff! What do you know about guns?”
“Certainly I have not used one much lately, and many improvements have been made since I used to go shooting; but still I do know how to handle a gun.”
“Then, sir,” cried the little lawyer in a towering fury, “perhaps you will be good enough to tell me how it was that this confounded piece of mechanism went off in my hands?”
“Simply,” said the professor smiling, “because you drew both the triggers at once.”
“It is false, sir. I just rested my fingers upon them as you are doing now.”
“And the piece went off!” said the professor drily, but smiling the while. “It is a way that all guns and pistols have.”
The dealer smiled his thanks, and Mr. Burne started up in the chair, but threw himself back again.
“Oh, dear! oh, my gracious me!” he groaned; “and you two grinning at me and rejoicing over my sufferings.”
“My dear sir, indeed I am very sorry,” said the dealer.
“Yes, I know you are,” said Mr. Burne furiously, “because you think, and rightly, that I will not buy your precious gun. Bless my heart, how it does hurt! I feel as if I should never be able to sit up again. I know my vertebrae are all loose like a string of beads.”
“Will you allow us to assist you into my private room, sir?” said the dealer.
“No, I won’t,” snapped the sufferer.
“But there is a couch there, and I will send for the resident English doctor.”
“If you dare do anything of the kind, confound you, sir, I’ll throw something at you. Can’t you see that there is nothing the matter with me, only I’m in pain.”
“But he might relieve you, Burne,” said the professor kindly.
“I tell you I don’t want to be relieved, sir,” cried the little lawyer. “And don’t stand
