THE UNSPEAKABLE GENTLEMAN
and under roof, and sometimes I have prayed, Jason. Oh yes, we all pray sometimes. Sometimes I have prayed for the time to come."
The red had gone out of my uncle's face, and Mr. Lawton was sitting rigid in his chair, his eyes glued on the slender figure before him.
"And now," said my father, in a tone that was as near to the pious as I ever heard him utter, "now it is here, and I thank thee, Lord."
"Good God!" gasped Mr. Lawton, in a voice that rose only a little above a whisper. "Do you mean to murder us?"
My father still stood motionless, but when he spoke again his voice had relapsed to its old genial courtesy.
"What a word for gentlemen to use!" he exclaimed in polite rebuke. "Murder you? Of course not, Lawton. I am simply about to propose a game. That is all, an exciting little game. Only one of us will die. Clear the large table of the papers, Ned, Toss them on the floor."
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