and pleading. Spasm now followed spasm till he was in convulsions, rolling
on the floor and yellowing his face and hair in the mustard.

Matt laughed hoarsely at the sight, but the laugh broke midway. A tremor
had run through his body. A new paroxysm was beginning. He arose and
staggered across to the sink, where, with probing forefinger, he vainly
strove to assist the action of the emetic. In the end, he clung to the
sink as Jim had clung, filled with the horror of going down to the floor.

The other's paroxysm had passed, and he sat up, weak and fainting, too weak
to rise, his forehead dripping, his lips flecked with a foam made yellow by
the mustard in which he had rolled. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles,
and groans that were like whines came from his throat.

"What are you snifflin' about?" Matt demanded out of his agony. "All you
got to do is die. An' when you die you're dead."

"I . . . ain't . . . snifflin' . . . it's . . . the . . . mustard . . .
stingin' . . . my . . . eyes," Jim panted with desperate slowness.

It was his last successful attempt at speech. Thereafter he babbled
incoherently, pawing the air with shaking arms till a fresh convulsion
stretched him on the floor.

Matt struggled back to the chair, and, doubled up on it, with his arms
clasped about his knees, he fought with his disintegrating flesh. He came
out of the convulsion cool and weak. He looked to see how it went with the
other, and saw him lying motionless.

He tried to soliloquize, to be facetious, to have his last grim laugh at