come in here for a revolver, and I am almost sure they mean mischief
with it. What am I to do? My refusal to sell one will not prevent
their getting it, yet I hate to sell to them. Of course a large
majority of those I sell are sold to people whom I know, and I know
they buy them for proper use. But a woman will slip in here and slyly
ask for a revolver, and I am wondering if she is going to commit
murder or suicide. Many a time a man looks so woe begone as he buys a
pistol that I make some excuse to keep him from loading it here for
fear he will blow out his brains right in the store."

"Did anything like that ever happen with you?"

"No, not with me, but it has happened. I read of a man going into a
gun store, buying a revolver, asking the clerk to load it (doing it
all calmly), and then placing it at his temple and falling down dead.
I believe I would go crazy if such a thing were to happen in my store,
and I always worry more or less for fear it may. It's a mean business
at the best; I wish there were no revolvers made. What do you get for
this?"

"Two eighty-five."

"Well, send us six."

I sold him a fair bill, and then spent the afternoon trying to sell
two other large retailers, but without success. One of the men was
snappish, the other good-natured but full of goods. I did want, very
badly, to get a little order out of them, but when I went to supper I
had nothing from them. After supper I went down to the cross-grained
man's store determined to get so well acquainted with him that I could