ll always have time to kill myself. There will be this advantage
about being arrested, that at the preliminary investigation I shall
have an opportunity of exposing to the authorities and to the public
all the infamy of her conduct. If I kill myself she may, with her
characteristic duplicity and impudence, throw all the blame on me,
and society will justify her behaviour and will very likely laugh
at me. . . . If I remain alive, then . . ."

A minute later he was thinking:

"Yes, if I kill myself I may be blamed and suspected of petty
feeling. . . . Besides, why should I kill myself? That's one thing.
And for another, to shoot oneself is cowardly. And so I'll kill him
and let her live, and I'll face my trial. I shall be tried, and she
will be brought into court as a witness. . . . I can imagine her
confusion, her disgrace when she is examined by my counsel! The
sympathies of the court, of the Press, and of the public will
certainly be with me."

While he deliberated the shopman displayed his wares, and felt it
incumbent upon him to entertain his customer.

"Here are English ones, a new pattern, only just received," he
prattled on. "But I warn you, M'sieu, all these systems pale beside
the Smith and Wesson. The other day--as I dare say you have read--an
officer bought from us a Smith and Wesson. He shot his wife's lover,
and-would you believe it?-the bullet passed through him, pierced
the bronze lamp, then the piano, and ricochetted back from the
piano, killing the lap-dog and bruising the wife. A magnificent
record redounding to the honour of our firm! The officer is now
under arrest. He will no doubt be convicted and sent to penal
servitude. In the first place, our penal code is quite out of date;
and, secondly, M'sieu, the sympathies of the court are always with
the lover. Why is it? Very simple, M'sieu. The judges and the jury
and the prosecutor and the counsel for the defence are all living
with other men's wives, and it'll add to their comfort that there
will be one husband the less in Russia. Society would be pleased
if the Government were to send all the husbands to Sahalin. Oh,
M'sieu, you don't know how it excites my indignation to see the
corruption of morals nowadays. To love other men's wives is as much
the regular thing to-day as to smoke other men s cigarettes and to
read other men's books. Every year our trade gets worse and worse
--it doesn't mean that wives are more faithful, but that husbands
res