The Christmas Gun

     Christmas morning, I had a surprise.

     As the day approached, Tam had been chortling over her gift choice with more than her usual vigor; this should've clued me but I was largely oblivious other than making up my mind that whatever it was, I was going to treat it as the Greatest. Gift. Evar.

     Oh, me of little faith.

     Comes the day, Tam traipsed downstairs from her attic lair carrying what appeared to be -- and was -- an old-fashioned wooden "lap desk" or secretary -- a very handy item, once used on tabletops as often as laps.

     That was kewl indeed and I was impressed.

     "Open it," she urged.

     Inside, under the front flap, that was an ad for a classic top-break revolver and a certificate attesting that it was an original, clipped right right out of a 1909 back number of Argosy (a fiction pulp back then).  Kewler!

     The front flap merely completes the slant of the top of the gadget down to the surface it sits on; there's another lid under it, which forms the upper portion of the writing surface. "Open it the rest of the way," Tam told me.

     I lifted up the lid and there was....this:

     Yep.  It's a nicely-nickled Hopkins & Allen top-break in .32 S&W* from 1909, just like one in the ad except for the stocks!  Very nearly pristine; it may have been fired once or twice and it appears to have been kept well-cleaned and oiled but its the newest over-hundred-year-old gun I've ever seen.

     Tam was right to be gleeful.  It was a perfect choice.  Thank you, Lodger!
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* Lighter and less filling than your regular .32 and yet -- still quite, quite ouchy.  Handle with care!