Q:  Okay, did he tell you the man’s name or tell you who the man was or what he did or anything like that to identify him?

Q:  Okay, the man named Zeigler who owned the furniture store that you were at, right?

A:  Right.

Near Thomas’s feet on the floor of the Cadillac was a supermarket paper bag containing three pistols.  The white man whom Mays called Zeigler lowered the electric windows.  Mays took one pistol and fired three or four shots outside, without leaving his seat.  Thomas took a gun, but Zeigler told him to put it down, try another, and Thomas did.  He fired a single shot.

Q:  Okay, let me, let me clear a few things up about the weapons, now and when you were firing them. Did, whose idea was it for you to fire the guns?

A:  It, it was his idea.

Q:  Okay, you’re talking about Mr. Zeigler?

A:  Mr. Zeigler’s, it was his idea.

Q:  Okay, what did he say to you to get you to fire them?

A:  He said he wanted our opinion about seeing whether they good guns, accurate guns, you know.

Q:  So in other words he, he just wanted to, wanted you—

A:  Just wanted us to fire the guns seemed like.

Q:  Okay, just wanted you to fire the guns to see if they were good guns—

A:  Right.

Q: —in your opinion

A:  Right.

Q:  Okay, and after you had fired the weapons…you fired the one weapon and Charlie Mays fired the other  one, is that right?

A:  Right.

Q:  Okay, now, did Mr. Zeigler ever fire any of the weapons?

A:  No sir, he, he, he never touched the weapons.  He just, just, just looked at the one I had in my hand and said try the other one.

Q:  Okay, so he never touched the weapons as, as far as you saw, right?

A:  As far as I saw, he never touched them.

After they had fired the pistols, Zeigler drove them back up Dillard Street to the furniture store.  He put Thomas out of the car and told him to pull the switch at the electrical box along the north side of the store.