Excerpt
The Black Dog
"The right to die?"
Professor Barstow, with a perplexed scowl ruffling the barbette of gray hairs above his keen eyes, shook his head and turning from the young man whose long legs extended over the end of the lean sofa upon which he sprawled in one corner of the laboratory, held the test-tube, which he had been studying abstractedly, up to the light. The flickering gas was not good for delicate work, and it was only lately that Barstow, spurred on by a glimpse of the end to a long series of experiments, had attempted anything after dark. He squinted thoughtfully at the yellow fluid in the tube and then, resuming his discussion, declared emphatically,
"We have no such right, Peter! You 're wrong. I don't know where, because you put it too cleverly for me. But I know you 're dead wrong—even if your confounded old theories are right, even if your deductions are sound. You 're wrong where you bring up."
"Man dear," answered the other gently, "you are too good a scientist to reason so. That is purely feminine logic."
"I am too good a scientist to believe that anything so complex as human life was meant to be wasted in a scheme where not so much as an atom is lost. Bah, your liver is asleep! Too much work—too much work! The black dog has pounced upon your shoulders!"
"I never had an attack of the blues or anything similar in my life, Barstow," Donaldson denied quietly. "You 'll propose smelling salts next."
"Then what the devil does ail you?"
"Nothing ails me. Can't a man have a few theories without the aid of liver complaint?"
"Not that kind. They don't go with a sound constitution. When a man begins to talk of finding no use for life, he 's either a coward or sick. And—I know you 're not a coward, Peter."
The man on the couch turned uneasily.
"Nor sick either. You are as stubborn and narrow as an old woman, Barstow," he complained.
"Living is n't a matter of courage, physical or moral. It suits you—it doesn't happen to suit me, but that doesn't mean that you are well and moral while I 'm sick and a coward. My difficulty is simple—clear; I haven't the material means to get out of life what I want. I 'll admit that I might get it by working longer, but I should have to work so many years in my own way that there would n't in the end be enough of me left to enjoy the reward. Now, if I don't like that proposition, who the devil is to criticize me for not accepting it?"
"It's quitting not to stay."
"It would be if we elected to come. We don't. Moreover, my case is simplified by circumstances—no one is dependent upon me either directly or indirectly. I have no relatives—few friends. These, like you, would call me names for a minute after I 'd gone and then forget."
"You 're talking beautiful nonsense," observed Barstow.
"Schopenhauer says—"
"Damn your barbaric pessimists and all their hungry tribe!"
Donaldson smiled a trifle condescendingly.
"What's the use of talking to you when you 'll not admit a sound deduction? And yet, if I said you don't know what results when you put together two known chemicals, you 'd—"
There was a look in Barstow's face that checked Donaldson,—a look of worried recollection....