But it's to be hoped I'll do a nater job.
Rest aisy. I promise ye."
"You Irish pig!"
So the devil burst forth, and all unaware, for McCarthy found himself
eye-high with the muzzle of a Colt's revolver.
"Is it loaded?" he asked. "I belave ye. But why are ye lingerin'?
Lift the hammer, will ye?"
The correspondent's trigger-finger moved and there was a warning
click.
"Now pull it. Pull it, I say. As though ye cud, with that flutter
to yer eye."
St. Vincent attempted to turn his head aside.
"Look at me, man!" McCarthy commanded. "Kape yer eyes on me when ye
do it."
Unwillingly the sideward movement was arrested, and his eyes returned
and met the Irishman's.
"Now!"
St. Vincent ground his teeth and pulled the trigger--at least he
thought he did, as men think they do things in dreams. He willed the
deed, flashed the order forth; but the flutter of his soul stopped it.
"'Tis paralyzed, is it, that shaky little finger?" Matt grinned into
the face of the tortured man. "Now turn it aside, so, an' drop it,
gently . . . gently . . . gently." His voice crooned away in
soothing diminuendo.
When the trigger was safely down, St. Vincent let the revolver fall
from his hand, and with a slight audible sigh sank nervelessly upon a
stool. He tried to straighten himself, but instead dropped down upon
the table and buried his face in his palsied hands.
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