And so bent was he on the point, that after dinner he came to me in the lounge and laid a loaded six-shooter beside my coffee-cup.

The younger Miss Bostock grew pale.

It looked an ugly, cumbrous, devastating weapon.
"But, my dear Colonel," I protested, "it's against the law to carry fire-arms." "Law--what law ?" "Why the law of France," said I.
This staggered him.

The fact of there being decent laws in foreign parts has staggered many an honest Briton.

He counselled a damnation of the law, and finally, in order to humour him, I allowed him to thrust the uncomfortable thing into my hip-pocket.
"Colonel," said I, when I took leave of him an hour later, "I have armed myself out of pure altruism.