"Why, Mr. Samuel!"
"Hullo, Peters!"
"We were expecting you back a week ago. So you got back safe?"
"Safe? Why, of course," Peters shook his head.
"I confess that, when there was this delay in your coming here, I sometimes feared something might have happened to you. I recall mentioning it to the young lady who recently did me the honour to promise to become my wife."
"Ocean liners aren't often wrecked nowadays."
"I was thinking more of the brawls on shore. America's a dangerous country. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?"
"I don't think I was."
"Ah!" said Jno. Peters, significantly.
He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and replaced it on the desk.
"What on earth are you doing with that thing?" asked Sam.
Mr. Peters lowered his voice.
"I'm going to America myself in a few days' time, Mr. Samuel. It's my annual holiday, and the guvnor's sending me over with papers in connection with The People v. Schultz and Bowen. It's a big case over there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an American gentleman. I am to take these important papers to his legal representative in New York. So I thought it best to be prepared."
The first smile that he had permitted himself in nearly two weeks flitted across Sam's face.
"What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?" he asked. "It's safer than London."
"Ah, but what about the underworld? I've seen these American films that they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Every Saturday night regular I take my young lady to a cinema, and, I tell you, they teach you something. Did you ever see 'Wolves of the Bowery'? There was a man in that in just my position, carrying important papers, and what they didn't try to do to him! No, I'm taking no chances, Mr. Samuel!"
"I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you."
Mr. Peters seemed wounded.
"Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very fair shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and practice at the Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You'd be surprised how quickly one picks it up. When I get home at night I try how quick I can draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning, Mr. Samuel. If you'd ever seen a film called 'Two-Gun-Thomas' you'd realise that. You haven't time to be loitering about."