Two terrible, known figures detached themselves from the gloom near the door.

“Hark to this gent sing,” said one, and his name was the Pedlar.  “Hark to him sing, Jack, and we’ll see that you get fair play.”

“Good,” said his friend, Joe Rix.  “Let him take his try, Jack.”

As a matter of fact, had Donnegan reached for a gun, he would have been shot before even Landis could bring out a weapon, for the steady eye of Joe Rix, hidden behind the Pedlar, had been looking down a revolver barrel at the forehead of Donnegan, waiting for that first move.  But something about the coolness of Donnegan fascinated them.

“Don’t shoot, Joe,” the Pedlar had said.  “That bird is the chief over again.  Don’t plug him!”

And that was why Donnegan lived.

23

If he had taken the eye of the hardened Rix and the still harder Pedlar, he had stunned the men of The Corner.  And breathlessly they waited for his proposal to Jack Landis.

He spoke with his hands behind his head again, after he had slowly taken out a handkerchief and wiped his chin.

“I’m a methodical fellow, Landis,” he said.  “I hate to do an untidy piece of work.  I have been disgusted with myself since my little falling out with Lewis.  I intended to shoot him cleanly through the hand, but instead of that I tore up his whole forearm.  Sloppy work, Landis.  I don’t like it.  Now, in meeting you, I want to do a clean, neat, precise job.  One that I’ll be proud of.”

A moaning voice was heard faintly in the distance.  It was the Pedlar, who had wrapped himself in his gaunt arms and was crooning softly, with unspeakable joy:  “Hark to him sing!  Hark to him sing!  A ringer for the chief!”

“Why should we be in such a hurry?” continued Donnegan.  “You see that clock in the corner?  Tut, tut!  Turn your head and look.  Do you think I’ll drop you while you look around?”

Landis flung one glance over his shoulder at the big clock, whose pendulum worked solemnly back and forth.

“In five minutes,” said Donnegan, “it will be eleven o’clock.  And when it’s eleven o’clock the clock will chime.  Now, Landis, you and I shall sit down here like gentlemen and drink our liquor and think our last thoughts.  Heavens, man, is there anything more disagreeable than being hurried out of life?  But when the clock chimes, we draw our guns and shoot each other through the heart—­the brain—­wherever we have chosen.  But, Landis, if one of us should inadvertently—­or through nervousness—­beat the clock’s chime by the split part of a second, the good people of The Corner will fill that one of us promptly full of lead.”

He turned to the crowd.

“Gentlemen, is it a good plan?”

As well as a Roman crowd if it wanted to see a gladiator die, the frayed nerves of The Corner responded to the stimulus of this delightful entertainment.  There was a joyous chorus of approval.