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"Just opening a little vein, " pleaded Tom.
"Not a capillary, " said I. "Now, look here; I'll throw up the
whole business unless you give me your word to behave yourself. I
don't draw the line at brandy. "
"Very well, brandy be it, " grumbled Tom.
"Well, I'm off, " said I. "I'll go into the fit against your garden
gate. "
"All right, old man. "
"By the way, what sort of a fit would you like? I could give you
either an epileptic or an apoplectic easily, but perhaps you'd like
something more ornate — a catalepsy or a trade spasm, maybe —
with miner's nystagmus or something of that kind? "
"Wait a bit till I think, " said Tom, and he sat puffing at his pipe
for five minutes. "Sit down again, Jack, " he continued. "I think we
could do something better than this. You see, a fit isn't a very deadly
thing, and if I did bring you through one there would be no credit in
it. If we are going to work this thing, we may as well work it well.
We can only do it once. It wouldn't do for the same fashionably
dressed stranger to be turning up a second time. People would begin
to smell a rat. "
"So they would, " said I; "but hang it, you can't expect me to
tumble off the cathedral spire, in order that you may hold an inquest
on my remains! You may command me in anything reasonable,
however. What shall it be? "
Tom seemed lost in thought. "Can you swim? " he said
presently.
"Fairly well. "
"You could keep yourself afloat for five minutes? "
"Yes, I could do that. "
"You're not afraid of water? "
'I'm not much afraid of anything.'
"Then come out,' said Tom, 'and we'll go over the ground. "
I couldn't get one word out of him as to his intentions, so I
trotted along beside him, wondering what in the wide world he was
going to do. Our first stoppage was at a small dock which is crossed
by a swinging iron bridge. He hailed an amphibious man with top-
boots. "Do you keep rowing-boats, and let them out? " he asked.
"Yes, sir, " said the man.