DANNY'S OWN STORY BY DON MARQUIS TO MY ... - Pink Monkey

fair chance, Jane, you've got to hand out these
pills, one to him and then one to me. YOU must
kill one or the other of us, or else _I_'LL kill HIM the
other way. And YOU had better pick one out for
him, because _I_ know which is which. Or else let
him pick one out for himself," he says.
Henry, he wasn't saying nothing. I thought
he had fainted. But he hadn't. I seen him licking
his lips. I bet Henry's mouth was all dry inside.
Jane, she took the box and she went round in
front of Henry and she looked at him hard. She
looked at him like she was thinking: "Fur God's
sake, spunk up some, and take one if it DOES kill
you!" Then she says out loud: "Henry, if you
die I will die, too!"
And Henry, he took one. His hand shook, but
he took it out'n the box. If she had of looked like
that at me mebby I would of took one myself.
Fur Jane, she was a peach, she was. But I don't
know whether I would of or not. When she makes
that brag about dying, I looked at the perfessor.
What she said never fazed him. And I thinks agin:
"Mebby I better jump in now and stop this thing."
And then I thinks agin: "No, it is between them
three and Providence." Besides, I'm anxious to
see who is going to get that pill with the science
in it. I gets to feeling jest like Providence hisself
was in that there room picking out them pills with
his own hands. And I was anxious to see what
Providence's ideas of right and wrong was like.
So fur as I could see they was all three in the wrong,
but if I had of been in there running them pills in
Providence's place I would of let them all off kind
o' easy.
Henry, he ain't eat his pill yet. He is jest looking
at it and shaking. The perfessor pulls out his
watch and lays it on the table.
"It is a quarter past eleven," he says. "Mr.
Murray, are you going to make me shoot you,
after all? I didn't want a scandal," he says.