Mr. Waddy read this letter very carefully twice. He folded and filed it with a bundle of old yellow letters, written in a hand like his own, with so much difference only as there may be between writing of man and boy-man. He then, with the same extreme deliberation, took from a portmanteau a mahogany box. In it were two eight-inch six-shooters, apparently fired only once or twice for trial. Both were loaded in every barrel of the cylinder with conical ball. The caps were perfectly fresh, but Mr. Waddy changed them all. While he was thus engaged, Major Granby came in. “At your armory, eh?” he asked. “You were always a great amateur in shooting-irons. What’s in the wind now? You look like an executioner. What do you intend to slay--beast, man, or devil?” “If I shoot, it will be to slay all three in one,” said Waddy gravely. He had a manner of intense and concentrated wrath, quite terrible to see. The Ira of the man’s nature was dominant. Granby understood that this meant mischief. “Do you want me?” he asked, quick but quiet. “Not yet,” replied his friend; “perhaps not at all. I don’t like to talk of shooting until the time comes to do it. Aiming too long makes the hand tremble. You can understand, Granby, that the world becomes a small and narrow place to walk in when we meet an enemy deadly and damnable. Now, without nourishing any ill-feeling, I begin to half perceive that there may be a person whose life and mine are inconsistent. You said I looked like an executioner--it may be that I shall be appointed executioner of such a person.” “I know you too well,” said Granby, “to suppose you capable of any petty revenge--this is grave, of course.” “It is grave. Personal revenge is necessary for the protection of society. There is crime that laws take no notice of. Public opinion--public scorn--is never quite reliable. Nor does public opinion protect the innocent ignorant. There may be such an absolutely dastard villain that, for the safety and decency and habitableness of the globe, he must die--and it is fortunate for society when he outrages anyone to the point of deadly vengeance.” “Do you begin to see any light on the part of your life that we have talked over by so many campfires? Fifteen years is long to wait.” “No years are lost while a man is learning patience. I remember that it took thirty years of my life to teach me to regard my moral and mental tremors and stumbles and falls with the same unconcern that in my fifteenth year I did my childish physical weaknesses. I suppose that one hour of actual happiness now, which I am certainly not likely to have, would explain my dark fifteen years. Patience!” “You expect to win happiness by killing your man, eh?” questioned Granby. “No; if I kill him, it will merely be from a quickened sense of duty. Don’t think I’m going to lie in ambush like a Thug. I wait information and entertain a purpose.” Here, Sir Comeguys knocked at the door. They had an appointment for a sailing party.