"You see that it is extraordinarily slender,
and free from projections, and of unusual materials. You also see that
it was obviously not made by an ordinary dagger-maker; that, in spite of
the Italian word scrawled on it, there is plainly written all over it
'British mechanic.' The blade is made from a strip of common
three-quarter-inch tool steel; the hilt is turned from an aluminium rod;
and there is not a line of engraving on it that could not be produced in
a lathe by any engineer's apprentice. Even the boss at the top is
mechanical, for it is just like an ordinary hexagon nut. Then, notice
the dimensions, as shown on my drawing. The parts A and B, which just
project beyond the blade, are exactly similar in diameter--and such
exactness could hardly be accidental. They are each parts of a circle
having a diameter of 10.9 millimetres--a dimension which happens, by a
singular coincidence, to be exactly the calibre of the old Chassepot
rifle, specimens of which are now on sale at several shops in London.
Here is one, for instance."
He fetched the rifle that he had bought, from the corner in which it was
standing, and, lifting the dagger by its point, slipped the hilt into
the muzzle.
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