“So you were reading that book!” remarked the doctor, with detestable aplomb. “I wondered who had taken it down. It is a poor book. I have destroyed it.” “I’m sorry,” said Pocket, and tried to look it rather than revolted. “I am not,” rejoined Baumgartner. “Even if it were a good book, it is no book for you at the present time. It is morbid to dwell on what is done and over.” “If it is over,” murmured the boy. “It is over!” said Baumgartner, fiercely. “Well,” said Pocket, “I’m glad I read what he’d got to say about somnambulism.” “Why?” Pocket did not say it was a satisfaction to have done anything in spite of such a despot as his questioner. But he did say it was a comfort to know that others besides himself had committed terrible deeds in their sleep. “But,” he added, “they always seem to have dreamt the dreadful thing as well. Now, the funny thing is that I remember nothing until the shot woke me and I found myself where you saw me.” “I’m glad you find it funny!” The sneer seemed strangely unworthy of a keen intelligence; the increased asperity of Baumgartner’s manner, and his whole conduct about a harmless book, altogether inexplicable. “You know what I mean,” replied the boy, with spirit. “Yes, I know what you mean! You mean to go out of your mind, and to do your best to drive me out of mine, for the sake of a technically human life less precious than the average dog’s!” And, much as it puzzled him, there was certainly something more human about this sudden outburst than in anything Dr. Baumgartner had said since the scene between them in the bedroom below. He even slammed the door behind him when he went. But Pocket preferred that novel exhibition, for its very heat and violence, to the sleek and calculated solicitude of the doctor’s final visit, with pipe and candle, when the one by the bedside had burnt down almost to the socket. “My young fellow!” he exclaimed in unctuous distress. “Not a bite eaten in all these hours! Do you know that it’s nearly midnight?” “I’m not hungry,” replied Pocket, lying gloriously for once. “I told you I wasn’t well.” “You’ll be worse if you don’t force yourself to eat.” “I can’t help that.” “Well, well!” said the doctor, instead of the objurgation that seemed to tremble for an instant on his lips. He replaced between them the oval hook of clear amber enclosing the thin round one of black nicotine, and he puffed until the cruel carved face was hotter and more infuriate than ever, under the swirling smoke of mimic battle. To the boy it was all but a living face, and a vile one, capable of nameless atrocities; and the hard-frozen face of Baumgartner was capable of looking on.