And so with this Mulligan Jacobs. My fear of
him was the fear of being infected with his venom. I could not help
it; for I caught a quick vision of the black and broken teeth I had
seen in his mouth sinking into my flesh, polluting me, eating me with
their acid, destroying me.
One thing was very clear. In the creature was no fear. Absolutely,
he did not know fear. He was as devoid of it as the fetid slime one
treads underfoot in nightmares. Lord, Lord! that is what the thing
was, a nightmare.
"You suffer pain often?" I asked, attempting to get myself in hand by
the calculated use of sympathy.
"The hooks are in me, in the brain, white-hot hooks that burn an'
burn," was his reply. "But by what damnable right do you have all
these books, and time to read 'em, an' all night in to read 'em, an'
soak in them, when me brain's on fire, and I'm watch and watch, an'
me broken spine won't let me carry half a hundredweight of books
about with me?"
Another madman, was my conclusion; and yet I was quickly compelled to
modify it, for, thinking to play with a rattle-brain, I asked him
what were the books up to half a hundredweight he carried, and what
were the writers he preferred.
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