[Pause] I, for my part, have killed a man, and I have never
suffered any qualms on account of it.
MR. Y. [Very much interested] Have--you?
MR. X, Yes, I, and none else! Perhaps you don't care to shake
hands with a murderer?
MR. Y. [Pleasantly] Oh, what nonsense!
MR. X. Yes, but I have not been punished,
ME. Y. [Growing more familiar and taking on a superior tone] So
much the better for you!--How did you get out of it?
MR. X. There was nobody to accuse me, no suspicions, no witnesses.
This is the way it happened. One Christmas I was invited to hunt
with a fellow-student a little way out of Upsala. He sent a
besotted old coachman to meet me at the station, and this fellow
went to sleep on the box, drove the horses into a fence, and upset
the whole equipage in a ditch. I am not going to pretend that my
life was in danger. It was sheer impatience which made me hit him
across the neck with the edge of my hand--you know the way--just
to wake him up--and the result was that he never woke up at all,
but collapsed then and there.
MR. Y. [Craftily] And did you report it?
MR. X. No, and these were my reasons for not doing so.
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