"What are you up to anyway? You're trying to josh me out of this experiment. I don't mean to let you buzz the vitality out of this dynamo. You're slick enough to weaken the coils of any old machine if you're not watched. Anyway, we've had enough monkeying, and I've got other fish to fry. The Board meets at eight and I'm punctual."
Bill Vanderhook now consulted his watch. "Holy Mother of Mud!"--he shouted. "It's seven o'clock, and no dinner, and this is Saturday night, and the barber shops crowded. Now, see here"--to the silent, despairing culprits,--"I don't want any more back talk. I'm going to wind up this business instanter. For this whole mess has to be out of the way in just fif--teen--minutes."
"No--no more talk. You just get ready for your last sprint. This farce is played out. The last act is over. The curtain's rung down. Alonzo Leffingwell, the wise man of Kankakee flats is no more. Bring on the--flowers--your 'Gates Ajar' and the other pin-wheels. The pallbearers are without. The baked meats are on the sideboard--mourners in line, and hark you to the funeral march,--
"Fare-well for-ev-er to old Kan-ka-kee, Fare-well, my Lonnie-Bird, don't wait for me."
As the hand of the avenger had touched the lever he had burst forth into impassioned song.
And there was more truth than either poetry or music in his improvisation.
For the cruel energy of this modern executioner was beginning to tell upon its ethereal victim. Never in his varied career had that polished and elegant gentleman been so completely "in the whirl."
There were now subtle but certain changes and transformations taking place in his attenuated substance. The gay, gallant and fascinating sojourner from the Orient was slowly but surely undergoing some character of transmutation.
"Now, once for all, and finally,"--resumed Bill, bending forward to readjust some part of the machinery,--"Once again and for the last time I say to you, that you must make up your mind,--no, rather your everlasting substance--to your fearful and final experiences as an individual, as an astral man, as a NEE--go. You have proclaimed that all is spirit. I contend that--ALL--IS--MATTER, and HERE SHE GOES."
As these last fierce words of Bill Vanderhook cut the air like whip strokes, the unhappy prisoner trembled with fear. With one mighty effort of will he gathered his forces into one last effort to break his bonds.