e
drifted off to other topics; and went into the smoking-room with the
coffee.

"It was at least six years since I had tasted anything stronger than
whiskey-and-water, and what devil entered into me that night to drink a
quart of champagne, and liqueurs, and pour port and brandy on top, the
devil himself only knows. Perhaps the old familiar sight of a lot of
good fellows; most likely the vanity of forcing Brathland to believe
that he beheld a rival as vigorous and dangerous as of old--I had gained
ten pounds and was looking and feeling particularly fit. At all events
the mess affected me as alcohol never had done in even my salet days,
and although my thoughts seemed to be moving in a crystal procession, I
became slowly obsessed with the desire to kill Brathland; whose face,
chalky white, as it always was when he was drunk--and he always got
drunk on less than any one else--filled me with a fury of disgust and
hatred. My mind kept assuring this thing that straddled it that I had
not the least intention of making an ass of myself; and that procession
of thought, in order to support its confidence, entered into an argument
with my conscience, which was in a corner and looked like a codfish
standing on its tail and grinning impotently. A jig of words escaped
from the mouth of the codfish: copy-book maxims, Bible admonitions, the
commandments, legal statutes; all in one hideous mess that annoyed me so
I slipped out, went up to my room, and pocketed a pistol. That logical
procession of thought in my mind assured me that this unusual move at a
friendly business dinner was merely in the way of self-protection, for
Brathland had once been heard to say that he wished we were both
cow-boys on an American ranch so that he could put a bullet into me
without taking the consequences--he never had a brain above shilling
shockers. My thoughts, as they visibly combined and recombined in the
crystal vault of my skull, asserted confidently that he had been reading
such stuff lately, and that, ten to one, he had a pistol in his pocket.

"When I returned Brathland was standing by the hearth, supporting
himself by the chimney-piece. The rest were lying about in long chairs,
smoking, and drinking whiskey-and-sodas. They were all sober enough, and
Brathland looked the more of a beast by contrast.

"I took a chair opposite him and ordered my thoughts to arrange
themselves in phrases that should pierce his mental hide and wither the
very root