“`Of course,’ he went on dreamily, `one or two men see the sober fact a long way off—­they go mad.  Do you notice that maniacs mostly try either to destroy other things, or (if they are thoughtful) to destroy themselves?  The madman is the man behind the scenes, like the man that wanders about the coulisse of a theater.  He has only opened the wrong door and come into the right place.  He sees things at the right angle.  But the common world—­’

“`Oh, hang the common world!’ said the sullen Smith, letting his fist fall on the table in an idle despair.

“`Let’s give it a bad name first,’ said the Professor calmly, `and then hang it.  A puppy with hydrophobia would probably struggle for life while we killed it; but if we were kind we should kill it.  So an omniscient god would put us out of our pain.  He would strike us dead.’

“`Why doesn’t he strike us dead?’ asked the undergraduate abstractedly, plunging his hands into his pockets.

“`He is dead himself,’ said the philosopher; `that is where he is really enviable.’

“`To any one who thinks,’ proceeded Eames, `the pleasures of life, trivial and soon tasteless, are bribes to bring us into a torture chamber.  We all see that for any thinking man mere extinction is the...  What are you doing?...  Are you mad?...  Put that thing down.’

“Dr. Eames had turned his tired but still talkative head over his shoulder, and had found himself looking into a small round black hole, rimmed by a six-sided circlet of steel, with a sort of spike standing up on the top.  It fixed him like an iron eye.  Through those eternal instants during which the reason is stunned he did not even know what it was.  Then he saw behind it the chambered barrel and cocked hammer of a revolver, and behind that the flushed and rather heavy face of Smith, apparently quite unchanged, or even more mild than before.

“`I’ll help you out of your hole, old man,’ said Smith, with rough tenderness. `I’ll put the puppy out of his pain.’

“Emerson Eames retreated towards the window. `Do you mean to kill me?’ he cried.

“`It’s not a thing I’d do for every one,’ said Smith with emotion; `but you and I seem to have got so intimate to-night, somehow.  I know all your troubles now, and the only cure, old chap.’

“`Put that thing down,’ shouted the Warden.

“`It’ll soon be over, you know,’ said Smith with the air of a sympathetic dentist.  And as the Warden made a run for the window and balcony, his benefactor followed him with a firm step and a compassionate expression.