"
"You know I can't run."
"If he don't come, you'll _have_ to!"
"Absurd! I shall be indisposed."
"If you mean you'll get sick, or sprain an ankle, or break a leg,
or kill yourself, guess again. I'm responsible for you now.
Something may go wrong with me, that pipe-stem is liable to gimme
a cancer, but nothin' is goin' to happen to you. My only chance
to make a live of it is to cough up that clay, and get some one
to outrun this cook. You're the only chance I've got, if Culver
don't show, and the first law of nature ain't never been
repealed."
"Self-protection, eh?"
"Exactly." Glass coughed thrice without result, stepped off the
prayerrug, rolled it up tightly; then, hugging it beneath his
arm, went on: "That four-eyed guy slipped me a whole lot of feed-
box information. Why, he's a killer, Wally! And he's got a cash-
register to tally his dead."
"Notches on his gun-handle, I suppose?"
"So many that it looks like his wife had used it to hang pictures
with. I tell you, he's the most deceitful rummy I ever seen.
What's more, he's got the homicide habit, and the habit has got
its eye on _me_.
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