"I'd have thought you might find arsenic a good thing," said Charley,
holding out a silver cigarette-case, his eyes turning slowly from the
startled, gloomy face of the man before him, to the cool darkness beyond
the open doorway of that saloon on the other side of the street.

John Brown shivered--there was something so cold-blooded in the
suggestion that he might have found arsenic a good thing. The metallic
glare of Charley's eye-glass seemed to give an added cruelty to the
words. Charley's monocle was the token of what was behind his blue eye-
one ceaseless interrogation. It was that everlasting questioning, the
ceaseless who knows! which had in the end unsettled John Brown's mind,
and driven him at last from the church and the possible gaiters of a dean
into the rough business of life, where he had been a failure. Yet as
Brown looked at Charley the old fascination came on him with a rush.
His hand suddenly caught Charley's as he took a cigarette, and he said:
"Perhaps I'll find arsenic a good thing yet."

For reply Charley laid a hand on his arm-turned him towards the shade of
the houses opposite. Without a word they crossed the street, entered the
saloon, and passed to a little back room, Charley giving an unsympathetic
stare to some men at the bar who seemed inclined to speak to him.

As the two passed into the small back room with the frosted door, one of
the strangers said to the other: "What does he come here for, if he's too
proud to speak! What's a saloon for! I'd like to smash that eye-glass
for him!"

"He's going down-hill fast," said the other. "He drinks steady--steady."