"Who's going to die?" "I am, please the pigs, if it gets much hotter and that bearer doesn't bring the peg quickly." "All right. Die away, _mon ami_. Only don't do it in the Club, that's all. Can't have it littered up with dead members. Houligan would object." "By Jove! I think I can imagine old Houligan doing it. 'Member dead in the ante-room? Good Gud! Bless my soul! Impossible to run a Club this way. Call the Babu and see if his last month's bill is paid. Not paid! Good Gud! Bless my soul! Impossible to run a Club this way. Babu, attach that body till the bill is paid.' Revel, you might just hurry up your dying once in a way to give us the pleasure of seeing Houligan perform." "I'll die legitimately," said Revel. "I'm not going to create a fresh scandal in the station. I'll wait for heat-apoplexy, or whatever is going, to come and fetch me." "This is _pukka_ hot-weather talk," said Saveloy. "I come over for a little honest poker, and find two moderately sensible men, Revel and Dallston, talking tombs. I'm sorry I've thrown away my valuable evening." "D'you expect us to talk about buttercups and daisies, then?" said Dallston. "No, but there's some sort of medium between those and Sudden Death." "There isn't. I haven't seen a daisy for seven years, and now I want to die," said Revel, plunging luxuriously into his peg. "I knew a Johnnie on the Frontier once who _did_," began Dallston meditatively. "Half a minute. Bearer, _cherut lao_! Tobacco soothes the nerves when a man is expecting to hear a whacker. We know what your Frontier stories are, Martha." Dallston had once, in a misguided moment, taken the part of Martha in the burlesque of _Faust_, and the nickname stuck. "'Tisn't a whacker, it's a fact. He told me so himself." "They always do, Martha. I've noticed that before. But what did he tell you?" "He told me that he had died." "Was _that_ all? Explain him." "It was this way. The man went down with a bad go of fever and was off his head. About the second day it struck him in the middle of the night." "Steady the Buffs! Martha, you aren't an Irishman yet." "Never mind. It's too hot to put it correctly. In the middle of the night he woke up quite calm, and it struck him that it would be a good thing to die--just as it might ha' struck him that it would be a good thing to put ice on his head. He lay on his bed and thought it over, and the more he thought about it, the better sort of _bundobust_ it seemed to be. He was quite calm, you know, and he said that he could have sworn that he had no fever on him." "Well, what happened?" "Oh, he got up and loaded his revolver--he remembers all this--and let fly, with the muzzle to his temple. The thing didn't go off, so he turned it up and found he'd forgot to load one chamber." "Better stop the tale there. We can guess what's coming."