I hate to see him prostitute
his talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for Rivers. You
know, he made one of these mythical heavy .44 six-shooters of the sort
Colt was supposed to have turned out at Paterson in 1839 for Colonel
Walker's Texas Rangers--you know, the model he couldn't find any of in
1847, when he made the real Walker Colt. That story you find in Sawyer's
book."
"Why, that story's been absolutely disproved," Rand said. "There never
was any such revolver."
"Not till Umholtz made one," Gresham replied. "Rivers sold it to,"--he
named a moving-picture bigshot--"for twenty-five hundred dollars. His
story was that he picked it up in Mexico, in 1938; traded a .38-special
to some halfbreed goat-herder for it."
"This fellow who bought it, now; did he see Belden and Haven's Colt book,
when it came out in 1940?"
"Yes, and he was plenty burned up, but what could he do? Rivers was dug
in behind this innocent-purchase-and-sale-in-good-faith Maginot Line of
his. You know, that bastard took me, once, just one-tenth as badly, with
a fake U.S. North & Cheney Navy flintlock 1799 Model that had been made
out of a French 1777 Model." The lawyer muttered obscenely.
"Why didn't you sue hell out of him?" Rand asked.
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