beat your forehead before that thing, and broken your promise to stop drinking—to whomever you made that promise—for fear of that Kanaka thug out there?'
"Claud stared at me—stared like a baby—with his mouth and his big blue eyes wide open, and while he stared what little blood was left in his wasted body found its way up into his face; at last, it seemed to me, he was ashamed on his own account. While he was staring at me Deshay came up.
" 'Call your cur,' he growled. I was vexed that he interfered just when he did, as Claud in his weakened state had not yet assimilated the pre-digested idea which I had fed him. I was scarcely normal at the time, Doctor; to my mind, the whole thing mattered very little; it was like one of those nightmares in which one is sub-consciously aware that it is really only a dream and acts with delightful disregard of consequences. I thought of dying as one thinks of waking up, and before waking up I wanted to see Claud kill Deshay. I
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