t touched his
coffee.

"Ain't no next life," Matt answered, pausing from the steak to take
his first sip of coffee. "Nor heaven nor hell, nor nothin'. You get all
that's comin' right here in this life."

"An' afterward?" Jim queried out of his morbid curiosity, for he knew
that he looked upon a man that was soon to die. "An' afterward?" he
repeated.

"Did you ever see a man two weeks dead?" the other asked.

Jim shook his head.

"Well, I have. He was like this beefsteak you an' me is eatin'. It was
once steer cavortin' over the landscape. But now it's just meat.
That's all, just meat. An' that's what you an' me an' all people come
to--meat."

Matt gulped down the whole cup of coffee, and refilled the cup.

"Are you scared to die?" he asked.

Jim shook his head. "What's the use? I don't die anyway. I pass on an'
live again--"

"To go stealin', an' lyin' an' snivellin' through another life, an' go
on that way forever an' ever an' ever?" Matt sneered.

"Maybe I'll improve," Jim suggested hopefully. "Maybe stealin' won't be
necessary in the life to come."

He ceased abruptly, and stared straight before him, a frightened
expression on his face.

"What's the matter!" Matt demanded.

"Nothin'. I was just wonderin'"--Jim returned to himself with an
effort--"about this dyin', that was all."

But he could not shake off the fright that had startled him. It was
as if an unseen thing of gloom had passed him by, casting upon him
the intangible shadow of its presence. He was aware of a feeling of
foreboding. Something ominous was about to happen. Calamity hovered in
the air. He gazed fixedly across the table at the other man. He could
not understand. Was it that he had blundered and poisoned himself? No,
Matt had the nicked cup, and he had certainly put the poison in the
nicked cup.

It was all his own imagination, was his next thought. It had played him
tricks before. Fool! Of course it was. Of course something was about to
happen, but it was about to happen to Matt. Had not Matt drunk the whole
cup of coffee?

Jim brightened up and finished his steak, sopping bread in the gravy
when the meat was gone.

"When I was a kid--" he began, but broke off abruptly.

Again the unseen thing of gloom had fluttered, and his being was vibrant
with premonition of impending misfortune. He felt a disruptive influence
at work in the flesh of him, and in all his muscles there was a seeming
that they were about to begin to twi