ARLINGTON -- An armed robber thought Jappy J. Dickson would be easy prey.

The 68-year-old Arlington man had just left his car in the parking lot of Harrigan's restaurant, at 944 E. Copeland Road, about 4:25 p.m. Sunday when a man wielding a handgun approached and demanded money.

"When I opened the door, he was standing there with a semiautomatic pistol wrapped in a towel, with the barrel exposed," Dickson said. "He said, `Give me all your money or I'll blow your head off.'"

Dickson, who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, said he told the robber "sure" and then reached into his car for his .38-caliber revolver, wedged next to the driver's seat. "I took it out of the holster and leveled it at his chest, and I asked him, `Are you sure you want to go through with this?' " he said. "He took off running."

Dickson, a retired auto salesman and a veteran of the Korean War, said he has had a permit to carry a handgun since 1996. He said he always carries his .38-caliber handgun. "That was my first experience of having to use it," he said. "It worked out real well. But if he hadn't run off, I probably would have shot him. It wouldn't have been a very good Mother's Day present for his mom had I shot him."

Dickson acted within his rights, police said. "He had a right to have the weapon, and he had a right to defend himself," said Arlington police Sgt. Mike Simonds, a supervisor in the crimes against persons unit. "It would be no different if someone broke into your house and you defended yourself with a gun."

Simonds said Sunday's foiled robbery was the only incident he can recall in which someone with a concealed handgun was able to ward off a robber. The robber fled in a car and remains at large.

"I've always felt good about that law and I still do," Dickson said. "If the question was whether to shoot, I didn't want to shoot him. I would have killed him, because I was aiming at his chest. We're both OK, so I guess it worked out."