You are a fool yourself, Holmes; you
began killing off the brightest and best of our countrymen three
generations ago, when the old and obsolete standards of society and
honor and orthodoxy were narrow and bigoted. You proved that when you
put your murderous mark upon my friend Kerner--the wisest chap I ever
knew in my life."
The Fool-Killer looked at me grimly and closely.
"You've a queer jag," said he, curiously. "Oh, yes; I see who you
are now. You were sitting with him at the table. Well, if I'm not
mistaken, I heard you call him a fool, too."
"I did," said I. "I delight in doing so. It is from envy. By all the
standards that you know he is the most egregious and grandiloquent
and gorgeous fool in all the world. That's why you want to kill him."
"Would you mind telling me who or what you think I am?" asked the old
man.
I laughed boisterously and then stopped suddenly, for I remembered
that it would not do to be seen so hilarious in the company of
nothing but a brick wall.
"You are Jesse Holmes, the Fool-Killer," I said, solemnly, "and you
are going to kill my friend Kerner. I don't know who rang you up, but
if you do kill him I'll see that you get pinched for it. That is," I
added, despairingly, "if I can get a cop to see you. They have a poor
eye for mortals, and I think it would take the whole force to round
up a myth murderer."
"Well," said the Fool-Killer, briskly, "I must be going. You had
better go home and sleep it off.
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