The collector bridled.
"But no ammunition," he went on, "until your claim to respectability has been confirmed.

By the way, the only claim you've made to me is for the guns.

You've told me nothing about yourselves." "Two hundred a gun ?" said Fred.

"Counting a pistol or revolver as one?
Three guns apiece--nine guns--eighteen hundred rupees' deposit ?" The collector nodded with a sort of grim pleasure in his own unreasonableness.

Fred drew out our new check book.
"You fellows agreeable ?" he asked, and we nodded.
"Here's a check on the Mombasa Bank for ten thousand, and your government can have as much more again if it wants it," he said.