I put the muzzle of the revolver into my right ear and pulled the trigger† I was out by one. I remember an extraordinary sense of jubilation, as if carnival lights had been switched on in a drab street. My heart knocked in its cage, and life contained an infinite number of possibilities.

-Greene, (Henry) Graham
Recalling a game of Russian roulette with his brother's revolver in1923.  A Sort of Life, ch.6, pt.2.

I opened a tin of Bologna sausage and broke a cake of chocolate, and that was all I had to eat. It may sound offensive, but I ate them together, bite by bite, by way of bread and meat. All I had to wash down this revolting mixture was neat brandy; a revolting beverage in itself. But I was rare and hungry; ate well, and smoked one of thebestcigarettesinmyexperience.Then Iput a stonein my straw hat, pulled the flap of my fur cap over my neck and eyes, put my revolver ready to hand, and snuggled well down among the sheepskins.

-Stevenson, Robert Louis
  Travels with a Donkey.

On the platform stood a policeman of normal proportions, and instead of a revolver and a truncheon he carried a copy of Ben Hur translated into Irish, which he was evidently studying for an examination important to his professional advancement. MrThewless realised that the imperial might of Great Britain lay behind him and that in front was the philosophic republic of Mr de Valera.

-Stewart,John Innes Mackintosh
  TheJourneying Boy.