But that does not affect, I take it, the medical
question.'
'No, it does _not_ affect the medical question--nothing _can_,' observed
the surgeon, in a sulky, sardonic way.
'Of course not,' answered the oracle of the silver spectacles, and both
remained silent for a while.
'You want to have him speak? Well, suppose there's a hundred chances to
one the trepan kills him on the spot--what then?' demanded the surgeon,
uncomfortably.
Dangerfield pondered, also uncomfortably for a minute, but answered
nothing; on the contrary, he demanded--
'And what then, Sir?'
'But here, in this case,' said Black Dillon, 'there's no chance at all,
do you see, there's _no_ chance, good, bad, or indifferent; none at
all.'
'But _I_ believe there _is_,' replied Dangerfield, decisively.
'You believe, but _I_ know.'
'See, Sir,' said Dangerfield, darkening, and speaking with a strange
snarl; 'I know what I'm about. I've a desire, Sir, that he should speak,
if 'twere only two minutes of conscious articulate life, and then
death--'tis not a pin's point to me how soon. Left to himself he must
die; therefore, to shrink from the operation on which depends the
discovery both of his actual murderer and of his money, Sir, otherwise
lost to his family, is--is a damned affectation! _I_ think it--so do
_you_, Sir; and I offer five hundred guineas as your fee, and Mrs.
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