Great story for a winters morning read!

Here is a follow on to that story.

The skin of the lion, and the knife with which I had saved my life, are still in my possession. The knife is the ordinary butcher's "sticking" type with a six-inch blade of the "Pipe Brand", manufactured by T. Williams of Smithfield, London, who specialize in butcher�s knives etc, and this reminds me of a rather amusing tale.

Not many years after my adventure with the lion in 1903, I happen to be in London: and since good knives are scarce in South Africa then I wanted to bring some back with me, I visited Mr. William�s shop in order to acquire some more of the type that had proved to be such a reliable friend.

There was a typical �bright young gentleman� behind the counter, and when I requested him to show me some �stick� knives, he looked me up and down disdainfully � evidently rather skeptical as to whether I had it in me to be a butcher � before passing a knife across the counter for my inspection. His apparent uncertainty about myself was even more when I informed him that I wanted a dozen of these, but after a little persuasion, he let me have them. I told the salesman that they were very good knives: that, in fact, I had actually once killed a lion with one of them! This evidently confirmed his worst suspicions for, with a distinctly withering expressions of the eye he retorted: �Yes they are good. They will also kill a sheep, you know!�

As I left the shop I could not help wondering whether that bright young lad was not already feverishly searching the columns of the Police Gazette to see whether any mad gangster had been holding up people and murdering them with sticking knives

Saeed,

good reading! I enjoyed it on this quiet morning, sitting here having my 4th cup of coffee........

thanks!!!!!!