The lighting of the candles—in my brain as well as on the floor—had one interesting effect. It stopped my excruciating pain for several moments. We stood looking at each other across the little low lights, like Gullivers towering over Lilliputian lamp-posts; that is, he stood, well out of arm's-length, while I leant with all my weight on one bent knee. Suddenly he gleamed and slapped his thigh.
"Why, I do believe you thought I was going to set fire to the house!" he cried.
"I knew you were."
"No—but now?"
"Yes—now—I see it in your damned face!"
"Really, Mr. Gillon!" exclaimed Nettleton, with a shake of his cracked head. "I hadn't thought of such a thing. But I am in a difficulty. The gas is on your side of the room, just out of your reach. So is the control of the very unpleasant arrangement that's got you by the heel. Is it the ankle? Oh! I'm sorry; but it's no use your looking round. I only meant the trap-door control; the trap itself has to be taken out before you can set it again, and it's a job even with the proper lever. After what's happened and the language you've been using, Mr. Gillon, I'm afraid I don't care to trust myself within reach of your very powerful arms, either to light the gas or to meddle with my little monster."
"See here," I said through the teeth that I had set against my pain. "You're as mad as a hatter; that's the only excuse for you——"
"Thank you!" he snapped in. "Then it won't be the worse for me if I do give you a taste of hell before your death and—cremation!"
"I'm sorry for you," I went on, partly because I did not know that the insane call for more tact than the sane, and partly because I was far from sure which this man was, but had resolved in any case to appeal with all my might to his self-interest. "I'm sorry for anybody who loses his wits, but sorriest for those who get them back again and have to pay for what they did when they weren't themselves. You go mad and commit a murder, but you're dead sane when they hang you! That seems to me about the toughest luck a man could have, but it looks very like being your own."
"Which of these four candles do you back to win?" inquired Nettleton, looking at them and not at me. "I put my money on the one nearest you, and I back this one here for a place."