“But do as you like,” he goes on. “I'm giving him more chance than I ought to with those pills. I might shoot him, and I would, and then face the music, if it wasn't for mixing the children up in the scandal, Jane. If you want to see him get a fair chance, Jane, you've got to hand out these pills, one to him and then one to me. _You_ must kill one or the other of us, or else _I'll_ kill _him_ the other way. And _you_ had better pick one out for him, because _I_ know which is which. Or else let him pick one out for himself,” he says. Henry, he wasn't saying nothing. I thought he had fainted. But he hadn't. I seen him licking his lips. I bet Henry's mouth was all dry inside. Jane, she took the box and she went round in front of Henry and she looked at him hard. She looked at him like she was thinking: “Fur God's sake, spunk up some, and take one if it _does_ kill you!” Then she says out loud: “Henry, if you die I will die, too!” And Henry, he took one. His hand shook, but he took it out'n the box. If she had of looked like that at me mebby I would of took one myself. Fur Jane, she was a peach, she was. But I don't know whether I would of or not. When she makes that brag about dying, I looked at the perfessor. What she said never fazed him. And I thinks agin: “Mebby I better jump in now and stop this thing.” And then I thinks agin: “No, it is between them three and Providence.” Beside, I'm anxious to see who is going to get that pill with the science in it. I gets to feeling just like Providence hisself was in that there room picking out them pills with his own hands. And I was anxious to see what Providence's ideas of right and wrong was like. So fur as I could see they was all three in the wrong, but if I had of been in there running them pills in Providence's place I would of let them all off kind o' easy. Henry, he ain't eat his pill yet. He is just looking at it and shaking. The perfessor reaches for his watch, and don't find none. Then he reaches over and takes Henry's watch, and opens it, and lays it on the table. “A quarter past one,” he says. “Mr. Murray, are you going to make me shoot you after all? I didn't want any blood nor any scandal,” he says. “It's up to you,” he says, “whether you want to take that pill and get your even chance, or whether you want to get shot. The shooting way is sure, but looks bad in the papers. The pill way don't implicate any one,” he says. “Which?” And he pulls a gun. Henry he looks at the gun. Then he looks at the pill. Then he swallows the pill. The perfessor puts his'n into his mouth. But he don't swallow it. He looks at the watch, and he looks at Henry. “Sixteen minutes past one,” he says. “_Mr. Murray will be dead at exactly fourteen minutes to two_. I got the harmless one. I can tell by the taste of the chemicals.”