took down a
double-barrelled cordite rifle, light-looking and of exquisite
workmanship.

"These are the guns we shoot elephants with nowadays," said Schaunard,
handling the weapon lovingly. "A child could carry it, and there is
nothing living it will not kill." He laughed softly to himself, and then
directed Armand to bring forward an elephant gun of the old pattern. In an
instant the young man returned, staggering under the weight of the immense
rifle, shod with a heel of india-rubber an inch thick.

Adams laughed, took the thing up with one hand, and raised it to his
shoulder as though it had been a featherweight.

"Ah!" said he, "here's a gun worth shooting with."

Schaunard looked on with admiration at the giant handling the gigantic
gun.

"Oh, for you," said he, "it's all very well. _Ma foi_, but you suit one
another, you both are of another day."

"God bless you," said Adams, "you can pick me up by the bushel in the
States. I'm _small_. Say, how much is this thing?"

"_That!_" cried Schaunard. "Why, what on earth could you want with such an
obsolete weapon as that?"

"Tell me--does this thing hit harder, gun for gun--not weight for weight,
mind you--but gun for gun--than that double-barrel you are holding in your
hands?"

"Oh, yes," said Schaunard, "it hits harder, just as a cannon would hit
harder, but----"

"I'll have her," said Adams. "I've taken a fancy to her. See here, Captain
Berselius is paying for my guns; they are his, part of the expedition--I
want this as my own, and I'll pay you for her out of my own pocket. How
much is she?"

Schaunard, whose fifty years of trading had explained to him the fact that
when an American takes a whim into his head it is best for all parties to
let him have his own way, ran his fingers through his beard.

"The thing has no price," said he. "It is a curiosity. But if you must
have it--well, I will let you have it for two hundred francs."

"Done," said Adams. "Have you any cartridges?"

"Oh, yes," replied Schaunard. "Heaps. That is to say, I have the old
cartridges, and I can have a couple of hundred of them emptied and
re-filled and percussioned. Ah, well, monsieur, you must have your own
way. Armand, take the gun; have it attended to and packed. And now that
monsieur has his play-toy," finished the old man, with one of his silent
little laughs, "let us come to business."

They did, and nearly an hour was spent whilst the American chose a double
hammerle