Frawley made an effort, failed, and answered helplessly: 

“No, Bucky, no, I can’t say I do understand.”

“Why do you think I ran you into Rio Janeiro?” said Greenfield, twisting on the leaves.  “Into the cholery?  What do you think made me lay for this desert?  Bub, you were on my back, clinging like a catamount.  I was bound to shake you off.  I was desperate.  It had to end one way or t’other.  That’s why I stuck to you until I thought it was over with you.”

“Why didn’t you make sure of it?” said Frawley with curiosity; “you could have done for me there.”

Greenfield looked at him hard and nodded.

“Keerect, Bub; quite so!”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Why!” cried Greenfield angrily.  “Ain’t you ever had any imagination?  Did I want to shoot you down like a common ordinary pickpocket after taking you three times around the world?  That was no ending!  God, what a chase it was!”

“It was long, Bucky,” Frawley admitted.  “It was a good one!”

“Can’t you understand anything?” Greenfield cried querulously.  “Where’s anything bigger, more than what we’ve done?  And to have it end like this—­to have a bug—­a miserable, squashy bug beat you after all!”

For a long moment there was no sound, while Greenfield lay, twisting, his head averted, buried in the leaves.

“It’s not right, Bucky,” said Frawley at last, with an effort at sympathy.  “It oughtn’t to have ended this way.”

“It was worth it!” Greenfield cried.  “Three years!  There ain’t much dirt we haven’t kicked up!  Asia, Africa—­a regular Cook’s tour through Europe, North and South Ameriky.  And what seas, Bub!” His voice faltered.  The drops of sweat stood thickly on his forehead; but he pulled himself together gamely.  “Do you remember the Sea of Japan with its funny little toy junks?  Man, we’ve beaten out Columbus, Jools Verne, and the rest of them—­hollow, Bub!”

“I say, what did you do it for?”

“You are a rum un,” said Greenfield with a broken laugh.  The words began to come shorter and with effort.  “Excitement, Bub!  Deviltry and cussedness!”

“How do you feel, Bucky?” asked Frawley.

“Half in hell already—­stewing for my sins—­but it’s not that—­it’s—­”

“What, Bucky?”

“That bug!  Me, Bucky Greenfield—­to go down and out on account of a bug—­a little squirmy bug!  But I swear even he couldn’t have done it if the desert hadn’t put me out of business first!  No, by God!  I’m not downed so easy as that!”

Frawley, in a lame attempt to show his sympathy, went closer to the dying man: 

“I say, Bucky.”

“Shout away.”

“Wouldn’t you like to go out, standing, on your feet—­with your boots on?”

Greenfield laughed, a contented laugh.

“What’s the matter, pal?” said Frawley, pausing in surprise.

“You darned old Englishman,” said Greenfield affectionately.  “Say, Bub.”