Pah! You make me sick."
"It's the truth," said he quietly.
"It may be. To me it looks a sight more like _foie gras_. Can't do
without me, can't you? Well, I can jolly well do without you, and I'm
going to."
"I warn you," he said: "I have done you an injury or two in my time, but
by George if I stand up and let you shoot me--well, I hate you badly
enough, but I won't let you do it without fair warning."
"I'll risk it anyway," said I.
"Very well." He stood up, and folded his arms. "Shoot, then, and be
hanged!"
I put out my hand to the revolver, hesitated, and withdrew it.
"That's not the way," I said. "I've got my code, as I told you before."
"Does the code forbid suicide?" he asked.
"That's a different thing."
"Not at all. The man who commits suicide kills an unarmed man."
"But the unarmed man happens to be himself."
"Suppose that in this instance your distinction won't work? Look here,"
he went on, as I pushed back my chair impatiently, "I have one truth
more for you. I swear I believe that what we have hated, we two, is not
each other, but ourselves or our own likeness. I swear I believe we two
have so shared natures in hate that no power can untwist and separate
them to render each his own. But I swear also I believe that if you
lift that revolver to kill, you will take aim, not at me, but by
instinct at a worse enemy--yourself, vital in my heart.
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