“Of course I will.”
“Swear to it?”
“I swear. But what in—”
Lot smiled. “Some time, when you have leisure, write a treatise on ‘Who killed the man?’” he said, as if to turn the subject, “and keep going back to first causes. You'll find startling results; you may decide that 'twas your duty to sign the paper.”
“I have no time for treatises,” returned the doctor, gruffly.
“You may trace the killing back to yourself.”
“I'm not afraid of it. Good-day.”
“Shake hands with me, doctor,” pleaded Lot, with a curious change of tone, “to show you bear no grudge for the breakfast you lost.”
The doctor stared a second, then went up to him with extended hand, looking at him seriously. He thought Lot's illness had begun to affect his mind.
“Keep yourself quiet, and you may outlive the best of us,” he said, soothingly, as if to a child or a woman, shook Lot's lean hand kindly, repeated his good-day, and was gone.