and run, Cap. I ain't
comin' out o' this one. But I don't suppose it would do.' 'Well, not
for you, Jim,' said I. 'I want to live,' he says; and he bust out
crying right there in my tent. 'I want to live for poor Molly and
Zerrilla'--that's what they called the little one; I dunno where they
got the name. 'I ain't ever had half a chance; and now she's doing
better, and I believe we should get along after this.' He set there
cryin' like a baby. But he wa'n't no baby when he went into action. I
hated to look at him after it was over, not so much because he'd got a
ball that was meant for me by a sharpshooter--he saw the devil takin'
aim, and he jumped to warn me--as because he didn't look like Jim; he
looked like--fun; all desperate and savage. I guess he died hard."

The story made its impression, and Lapham saw it. "Now I say," he
resumed, as if he felt that he was going to do himself justice, and say
something to heighten the effect his story had produced. At the same
time he was aware of a certain want of clearness. He had the idea, but
it floated vague, elusive, in his brain. He looked about as if for
something to precipitate it in tangible shape.

"Apollinaris?" asked Charles Bellingham, handing the bottle from the
other side. He had drawn his chair closer than the rest to Lapham's,
and was listening with great interest. When Mrs. Corey asked him to
meet Lapham, he accepted gladly. "You know I go in for that sort of
thing, Anna. Since Leslie's affair we're rather bound to do it. And I
think we meet these practical fellows too little. There's always
something original about them." He might naturally have believed that
the reward of his faith was coming.

"Thanks, I will take some of this wine," said Lapham, pouring himself a
glass of Madeira from a black and dusty bottle caressed by a label
bearing the date of the vintage. He tossed off the wine, unconscious
of its preciousness, and waited for the result. That cloudiness in his
brain disappeared before it, but a mere blank remained. He not only
could not remember what he was going to say, but he could not recall
what they had been talking about. They waited, looking at him, and he
stared at them in return. After a while he heard the host saying,
"Shall we join the ladies?"

Lapham went, trying to think what had happened. It seemed to him a
long time since he had drunk that wine.

Miss Corey gave him a cup of tea, where he stood aloof from