door.
'Don't tell me you really mean to try it.'
'What else did you think I was going to do?'
'But you can't. You would get caught for a certainty. And what are
you going to do then? Say it was all a joke? Suppose they fill you
full of bullet-holes! Nice sort of fool you'll look, appealing to
some outraged householder's sense of humor, while he pumps you full
of lead with a Colt.'
'These are the risks of the profession. You ought to know that,
Arthur. Think what you went through tonight.'
Arthur Mifflin looked at his friend with some uneasiness. He knew
how very reckless Jimmy could be when he had set his mind on
accomplishing anything, since, under the stimulus of a challenge, he
ceased to be a reasoning being, amenable to argument. And, in the
present case, he knew that Willett's words had driven the challenge
home. Jimmy was not the man to sit still under the charge of being a
fakir, no matter whether his accuser had been sober or drunk.
Jimmy, meanwhile, had produced whiskey and cigars. Now, he was lying
on his back on the lounge, blowing smoke-rings at the ceiling.
'Well?' said Arthur Mifflin, at length.
'Well, what?'
'What I meant was, is this silence to be permanent, or are you going
to begin shortly to amuse, elevate, and instruct? Something's
happened to you, Jimmy. There was a time when you were a bright
little chap, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs, your flashes of
merriment that were wont to set the table in a roar when you were
paying for the dinner? Yon remind me more of a deaf-mute celebrating
the Fourth of July with noiseless powder than anything else on
earth. Wake up, or I shall go. Jimmy, we were practically boys
together. Tell me about this girl--the girl you loved, and were
idiot enough to lose.'
Jimmy drew a deep breath.
'Very well,' said Mifflin complacently, 'sigh if you like; it's
better than nothing.'
Jimmy sat up.
'Yes, dozens of times,' said Mifflin.
'What do you mean?'
'You were just going to ask me if I had ever been in love, weren't
you?'
'I wasn't, because I know you haven't. You have no soul. You don't
know what love is.'
'Have it your own way,' said Mifflin, resignedly.
Jimmy bumped back on the sofa.
'I don't either,' he said. 'That's the trouble.'
Mifflin looked interested.
'I know,' he said. 'You've got that strange premonitory fluttering,
when the heart seems to thrill within you like some baby bird
singing its first song, when--'
'Oh, cut it out!'
