“Sentiment hardly describes the case,” said Cornish, thoughtfully. “Do you mean to tell me that you do not care about all these deaths—about these poor devils of malgamiters?” And he looked hard at his companion beneath the lamp.
“Not a d—n,” answered Roden. “I have been poor—you haven't. Why, man! I have starved inside a good coat. You don't know what that means.”
Cornish looked at him, and said nothing. There was no mistaking the man's sincerity—nor the manner in which his voice suddenly broke when he spoke of hunger.
“Then there are only two things left for me to do,” said Cornish, after a moment's reflection. “Ask your sister to marry me first, and smash you up afterwards.”
Roden, who was smoking, threw his cigarette away. “You mean to do both these things?”
“Both.”
Roden looked at him. He opened his lips to speak, but suddenly leapt back.
“Look out!” he cried, and had barely time to point over Cornish's shoulder.
Cornish swung round on his heel. He belonged to a school and generation which, with all its faults, has, at all events, the redeeming quality of courage. He had long learnt to say the right thing, which effectually teaches men to do the right thing also. He saw some one running towards him, noiselessly, in rubber shoes. He had no time to think, and scarce a moment in which to act, for the man was but two steps away with an upraised arm, and in the lamplight there flashed the gleam of steel.
Cornish concentrated his attention on the upraised arm, seizing it with both hands, and actually swinging his assailant off his legs. He knew in an instant who it was, without needing to recognize the smell of malgamite. This was Otto von Holzen, who had not hesitated to state his opinion—that it is often worth a man's while to kill another.