"Now, don't be in such a hurry," said old Gabe. "If you mean we ought to be where the victim of the murder is, we are. He's right here now. I'm him. I'm the one that's being murdered. I'm being murdered by slow murder. I'm liable to drop down dead any minute. But I don't want to be murdered and not have the feller that murders me hang like he ought. I can't be expected to. It ain't human nature." "No, it ain't," agreed Philo. "A man can't help feeling revengeful against the man that murders him. If anybody murdered me I'd feel the same way. How's he killing you? Slow poison?" "Gun-shot," said old Gabe. "Shootin' me to death with a gun." The correspondence school detective looked at old Gabe with amazement. "Shootin' you to death with a gun!" he exclaimed. "Ain't you told the police?" "I come to you, didn't I?" asked old Gabe. "If I was to set the police on the feller he might rouse up and shoot me to death all at once." "How is he shootin' you to death?" asked Philo. "By inches, b'gee," said old Gabe. "Yes, sir, by inches. Every once in a while he takes a shot at me. Sometimes through the window of my house, and sometimes when I'm walkin' on the street." "And he ain't ever hit you yet?" asked Philo Gubb. "Hit me?" exclaimed old Gabe. "Why, he don't ever miss me. He hits me every time. There ain't a day he don't shoot and hit me, and some days he hits me two or three times. I dare say I'm almost dead now, if I knowed it." Philo Gubb fondled his notebook uncertainly. "What--what does he shoot you with?" he asked. "Well, I dunno exactly," said old Gabe. "With a pea-shooter." Philo Gubb closed his notebook, and slipped it into his pocket. "If all you was after was to get that two dollars and ten cents, you might have got it without wastin' so much of my time," he said reproachfully. But old Gabe did not move. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Maybe I'm a fool," Gubb said bitterly, "but I ain't no such fool as to think anybody is murdering nobody with a pea-shooter." "Was you ever shot with a cannon?" asked old Gabe calmly. "No, nor nobody ever tried to murder me with a pea-shooter," said Philo Gubb. "If you ever _was_ shot by a thirteen-inch cannon ball," said old Gabe, "you'd know it. When a thirteen-inch cannon ball hits you, there ain't nothin' left of you at all. But when a one-inch cannon ball hits you, you've got a chance to live a minute or two, maybe. That's the difference between a thirteen-inch cannon ball shootin' you, and a one-inch cannon ball shootin' you. And a rifle ball is different, too." "I got a job of paper-hangin' as soon as I can get away from here," said Philo Gubb meaningly.