Somerset, with something bordering on rage. "For on one point
my mind is settled: either I see you packed off to America, brick and
all, or else you dine in prison."

"You have perhaps neglected one point," returned the unoffended Zero:
"for, speaking as a philosopher, I fail to see what means you can employ
to force me. The will, my dear fellow----"

"Now, see here," interrupted Somerset. "You are ignorant of anything but
science, which I can never regard as being truly knowledge; I, sir, have
studied life; and allow me to inform you that I have but to raise my
hand and voice--here in this street--and the mob----"

"Good God in Heaven, Somerset," cried Zero, turning deadly white and
stopping in his walk, "great God in Heaven, what words are these? Oh,
not in jest, not even in jest, should they be used! The brutal mob, the
savage passions.... Somerset, for God's sake, a public-house!"

Somerset considered him with freshly awakened curiosity. "This is very
interesting," said he. "You recoil from such a death?"

"Who would not?" asked the plotter.

"And to be blown up by dynamite," inquired the young man, "doubtless
strikes you as a form of euthanasia?"

"Pardon me," returned Zero: "I own, and, since I have braved it daily in
my professional career, I own it even with pride: it is a death
unusually distasteful to the mind of man."

"One more question," said Somerset; "you object to Lynch Law? why?"

"It is assassination," said the plotter calmly; but with eyebrows a
little lifted, as in wonder at the question.

"Shake hands with me," cried Somerset. "Thank God, I have now no
ill-feeling left; and though you cannot conceive how I burn to see you
on the gallows, I can quite contentedly assist at your departure."

"I do not very clearly take your meaning," said Zero, "but I am sure you
mean kindly. As to my departure, there is another point to be
considered. I have neglected to supply myself with funds; my little all
has perished in what history will love to relate under the name of the
Golden Square Atrocity; and without what is coarsely if vigorously
called stamps, you must be well aware it is impossible for me to pass
the ocean."

"For me," said Somerset, "you have now ceased to be a man. You have no
more claim upon me than a door-scraper; but the touching confusion of
your mind disarms me from extremities. Until to-day, I always thought
stupidity was funny; I now know otherwise; and when I look upon your
i