otel.

"I wonder whether Turner was right about that revolver!" he suddenly
thought, a window full 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 arming it might come in very handy some
day. Yes, I will buy one, with plenty of ammunition, and see whether I
cannot hide it away where a pretty close search would not discover it."

To make up his mind was to act, and within a few minutes Jack was in the
gun-shop.

"I want a revolver of some sort," he said. "Something which would be
useful, and at the same time not too big and heavy."

"Then you couldn't do better than take one of these Mausers," the owner
of the shop, an Englishman, replied. "They lie much flatter than a
revolver, are not given to jamming, and fire ten shots in rapid
succession. Come in here, sir, and try one. I have a range specially
fitted up."

Jack followed the man into a big shed 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," remarked the shopman
knowingly, "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 many of our countrymen
who have managed to smuggle in arms. That Mauser you've bought could be
easily managed 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 manage it."

Arrived at the hotel, he first begged a reel of cotton, a needle, and a
small piece of dark serge from the manageress, and then retired to his
room. He was wearing a navy-blue suit at the time, and whipping the
coat off, he first fitted the Mauser pistol beneath the waistcoat,
pushing the muzzle up till it rested in the right 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 make
rather a muddle of it, as I never was very grand at