Unless he is a shooting man do not hand him any cartridges. If he wants to see what your cartridges are like take the pistol back, open it again and see that it is still empty, put it away safely, and then hand him a cartridge to examine.
All this may seem super-caution but it is necessary, especially with an automatic, and unless you do this by instinct with the safer single-shot pistol, you may at any moment have a dreadful accident with an automatic for which you will be sorry all your life.
Now, standing facing the butt, open the pistol, put a cartridge in it (an empty cartridge case, not a loaded one). Put the pistol, if it has an outside hammer, to full-cock, being very careful to keep it pointed at the butt, lower the hammer to half-cock, open the pistol and extract the cartridge, and close the pistol again; repeat this many times till you can cock and half-cock without the hammer slipping or falling by accident.
If it had a loaded cartridge in it the pistol would go off should you let the hammer slip down, which is one of the most frequent causes of accidents with pistols having external hammers.
Some hammer pistols have a rebound, that is, when the hammer falls it rebounds to half-cock.
CHAPTER VII
HOW TO PREVENT ACCIDENTS (Continued)
Do not forget the hammer has three positions.