"What are you looking at?" asked the other.
"Ernie," began Braddock in a voice that sent a shiver across the boy's crooked back, it was so sepulchral, "let me take your pistol a second."
Ernie Cronk drew back a step. He eyed Braddock narrowly.
"Who are you going to kill?" he asked after a moment.
"Myself," said Braddock, lifting his haggard face.
Again the hunchback looked long at the man. Then, without a word, he handed a new revolver to Thomas Braddock. It was not the small derringer he was wont to carry.
Braddock seemed surprised by the boy's readiness. He received the weapon gingerly. A sudden spasm shook his big frame.
"Is—is it loaded?" he inquired, less lugubrious than he had been before.
"No," said Ernie shortly. Braddock's chest swelled suddenly. "I suppose you think I'm fool enough to let you kill yourself with my gun and me right here where they could nab me. It's got blank ca'tridges, that's all. Somebody changed 'em on me last night—just before that—that sneak went away on the train."
Volumes could not have told more than that single sentence.