I might shoot him, and I would, and then face the music, if it wasn't for mixing the children up in the scandal, Jane. If you want to see him get a fair chance, Jane, you've got to hand out these pills, one to him and then one to me. YOU must kill one or the other of us, or else _I_'LL kill HIM the other way. And YOU had better pick one out for him, because _I_ know which is which. Or else let him pick one out for himself," he says.
Henry, he wasn't saying nothing. I thought he had fainted. But he hadn't. I seen him licking his lips. I bet Henry's mouth was all dry inside.
Jane, she took the box and she went round in front of Henry and she looked at him hard. She looked at him like she was thinking: "Fur God's sake, spunk up some, and take one if it DOES kill you!" Then she says out loud: "Henry, if you die I will die, too!"And Henry, he took one. His hand shook, but he took it out'n the box. If she had of looked like that at me mebby I would of took one myself.
Fur Jane, she was a peach, she was. But I don't know whether I would of or not. When she makes that brag about dying, I looked at the perfessor.
What she said never fazed him. And I thinks agin:
"Mebby I better jump in now and stop this thing."And then I thinks agin: "No, it is between them three and Providence." Besides, I'm anxious to see who is going to get that pill with the science in it. I gets to feeling jest like Providence hisself was in that there room picking out them pills with his own hands. And I was anxious to see what Providence's ideas of right and wrong was like.
So fur as I could see they was all three in the wrong, but if I had of been in there running them pills in Providence's place I would of let them all off kind o' easy.
Henry, he ain't eat his pill yet. He is jest looking at it and shaking. The perfessor pulls out his watch and lays it on the table.
"It is a quarter past eleven," he says. "Mr. Murray, are you going to make me shoot you, after all? I didn't want a scandal," he says.
"It's for you to say whether you want to eat that pill and get your even chance, or whether you want to get shot. The shooting method is sure, but it causes talk. These pills won't. WHICH?"And he pulls a revolver. Which I suppose he had got that too when he went down after them pills.
Henry, he looks at the gun.
Then he looks at the pill.
Then he swallers the pill.
The perfessor puts his gun back into his pocket, and then he puts his pill into his mouth. He don't swaller it. He looks at the watch, and he looks at Henry.
"Sixteen minutes past eleven," he says. "AT
EXACTLY TWENTY-NINE MINUTES TO TWELVE MR. MURRAYWILL BE DEAD. I got the harmless one. I can tell by the taste."And he put the pieces out into his hand, to show that he has chewed his'n up, not being willing to wait fifteen minutes fur a verdict from his digestive ornaments. Then he put them pieces back into his mouth and chewed 'em up and swallered 'em down like he was eating cough drops.
Henry has got sweat breaking out all over his face, and he tries to make fur the door, but he falls down onto a sofa.
"This is murder," he says, weak-like. And he tries to get up again, but this time he falls to the floor in a dead faint.
