didn't flinch, though I'm hanged if that bandaged knob of his, and
those blinkers, aren't enough to unnerve any one, coming quietly
up to you.

"'You said it was an empty sleeve?' he said. 'Certainly,' I said.
At staring and saying nothing a barefaced man, unspectacled, starts
scratch. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket
again, and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to
me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. Seemed an
age. 'Well?' said I, clearing my throat, 'there's nothing in it.'

"Had to say something. I was beginning to feel frightened. I could
see right down it. He extended it straight towards me, slowly,
slowly--just like that--until the cuff was six inches from my
face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that!
And then--"

"Well?"

"Something--exactly like a finger and thumb it felt--nipped my
nose."

Bunting began to laugh.

"There wasn't anything there!" said Cuss, his voice running up into
a shriek at the "there." "It's all very well for you to laugh, but
I tell you I was so startled, I hit his cuff hard, and turned
around, and cut out of the room--I left him--"

Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic.