"What do you suppose? You didn't think I'd gone and loaded it, did you?I was simply seeing--if you want to know--whether one would use one'sforefinger or one's thumb. I've quite decided on the thumb."

"Uvo," I said, pouring out more whisky than I intended, "this is morethan I can stick even from you, old fellow! You've gone on and on aboutthis infernal shooter till I never want to see one in my life again. Ifyou meant to blow out your brains this very night, you couldn't havesaid more than you have done. What rhyme or reason is there in suchcrazy talk?"

"I didn't say it was either poetry or logic," he answered, filling hispipe. "But it's a devilish fascinating idea."

"The idea of wanton suicide? You call that fascinating?"

"Not as an end. It's a poor enough end. I was thinking of the means--thecold trigger against your finger--the cold muzzle in your ear--the onefrightful bang and then the Great What Next!"

"The Great What Next for you," I said, as his eyes came dancing througha cloud of birdseye, "is Cane Hill or Colney Hatch, if you don't takecare."

"I prefer the Village mortuary, if you don't mind, Gilly."

"Either would be so nice for your mother and sister!"

"And I'm such a help to them as I am, aren't I? Think of the bread I winand all the dollars I'm raking in!"

"It would be murder as well as suicide," I went on. "It would finish offone of them, if not both."

He smoked in silence with a fatuous, drunken smile, though he was assober as a man could be. That made it worse. And it was worst of allwhen the smile faded from the face to gather in the eyes, in a liquidlook of unfathomable cynicism, new to me in Uvo Delavoye, and yetmysteriously familiar and repellent.

"Yes; they're certainly a drawback, Gillon, but I don't know thatthey've a right to be anything more. We don't ask to be put into thisworld; surely we can put ourselves out if it amuses us."

"'If it amuses us!'"

"But that's the whole point!" he cried, puffing and twinkling as before."How many people out themselves for no earthly reason that anybody elsecan see, and have their memory insulted by the usual idiotic verdict?They're no more temporarily insane than I am. It's 

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