“ ‘Spotted blinds, I think we said,’ remarked Smith with a rogueish ruthlessness, and wagging the pistol-barrel at him like a long metallic finger.
“ ‘Spotted blinds,’ said Emerson Eames faintly.
“ ‘You can’t say fairer than that,’ admitted the younger man, ‘and now I’ll just tell you this to wind up with. If you really were what you profess to be, I don’t see that it would matter to snail or seraph if you broke your impious stiff neck and dashed out all your drivelling devil-worshipping brains. But in strict biographical fact you are a very nice fellow, addicted to talking putrid nonsense, and I love you like a brother. I shall therefore fire off all my cartridges round your head so as not to hit you (I am a good shot, you may be glad to hear), and then we will go in and have some breakfast.’
“He then let off two barrels in the air, which the Professor endured with singular firmness, and then said, ‘But don’t fire them all off.’
“ ‘Why not’ asked the other buoyantly.
“ ‘Keep them,’ asked his companion, ‘for the next man you meet who talks as we were talking.’
“It was at this moment that Smith, looking down, perceived apoplectic terror upon the face of the Sub-Warden, and heard the refined shriek with which he summoned the porter and the ladder.
“It took Dr. Eames some little time to disentangle himself from the ladder, and some little time longer to disentangle himself from the Sub-Warden. But as soon as he could do so unobtrusively, he rejoined his companion in the late extraordinary scene. He was astonished to find the gigantic Smith heavily shaken, and sitting with his shaggy head on his hands. When addressed, he lifted a very pale face.
“ ‘Why, what is the matter?’ asked Eames, whose own nerves had by this time twittered themselves quiet, like the morning birds.
“ ‘I must ask your indulgence,’ said Smith, rather brokenly. ‘I must ask you to realize that I have just had an escape from death.’
“ ‘You have had an escape from death?’ repeated the Professor in not unpardonable irritation. ‘Well, of all the cheek—’
“ ‘Oh, don’t you understand, don’t you understand?’ cried the pale young man impatiently. ‘I had to do it, Eames; I had to prove you wrong or die. When a man’s young, he nearly always has someone whom he thinks the top-water mark of the mind of man—someone who knows all about it, if anybody knows.
“ ‘Well, you were that to me; you spoke with authority, and not as the scribes. Nobody could comfort me if you said there was no comfort. If you really thought there was nothing anywhere, it was because you had been there to see. Don’t you see that I had to prove you didn’t really mean it?—or else drown myself in the canal.’
“ ‘Well,’ said Eames hesitatingly, ‘I think perhaps you confuse—’
“ ‘Oh, don’t tell me that!’ cried Smith with the sudden clairvoyance of mental pain; ‘don’t tell me I confuse enjoyment of existence with the Will to Live! That’s German, and German is High Dutch, and High Dutch is Double Dutch. The thing I saw shining in your eyes when you dangled on that bridge was enjoyment of life and not “the Will to Live.” What you knew when you sat on that damned gargoyle was that the world, when all is said and done, is a wonderful and beautiful place; I know it, because I knew it at the same minute. I saw the gray clouds turn pink, and the little gilt clock in the crack between the houses. It was those things you hated leaving, not Life, whatever that is. Eames, we’ve been to the brink of death together; won’t you admit I’m right?’
“ ‘Yes,’ said Eames very slowly, ‘I think you are right. You shall have a First!’
“ ‘Right!’ cried Smith, springing up reanimated. ‘I’ve passed with honours, and now let me go and see about being sent down.’
“ ‘You needn’t be sent down,’ said Eames with the quiet confidence of twelve years of intrigue. ‘Everything with us comes from the man on top to the people just round him: I am the man on top, and I shall tell the people round me the truth.’
“The massive Mr. Smith rose and went firmly to the window, but he spoke with equal firmness. ‘I must be sent down,’ he said, ‘and the people must not be told the truth.’
“ ‘And why not’ asked the other.
“ ‘Because I mean to follow your advice,’ answered the massive youth, ‘I mean to keep the remaining shots for people in the shameful state you and I were in last night—I wish we could even plead drunkenness. I mean to keep those bullets for pessimists—pills for pale people. And in this way I want to walk the world like a wonderful surprise—to float as idly as the thistledown, and come as silently as the sunrise; not to be expected any more than the thunderbolt, not to be recalled any more than the dying breeze. I don’t want people to anticipate me as a well-known practical joke. I want both my gifts to come virgin and violent, the death and the life after death. I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him—only to bring him to life. I begin to see a new meaning in being the skeleton at the feast.’
“ ‘You can scarcely be called a skeleton,’ said Dr. Eames, smiling.
“ ‘That comes of being so much at the feast,’ answered the massive youth. ‘No skeleton can keep his figure if he is always dining out. But that is not quite what I meant: what I mean is that I caught a kind of glimpse of the meaning of death and all that—the skull and crossbones, the memento mori. It isn’t only meant to remind us of a future life, but to remind us of a present life too. With our weak spirits
