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174 which I will not give away even to you, Laurence; my experience that night made me decide never to use it again, or tell its name. This occasion was the first and last time I used it in a poisonous dose.

He came back, flushed and angry-looking, and while I watched him with eyes nearly closed he drank off the doctored whisky and cursed aloud at his failure; he even shook his fist at me as I lay apparently helpless.

Then came the gradual onset of the symptoms of my drug.

This evil thing paralyses the muscular system, but leaves the nervous system untouched, and given in the right dose it affects the voluntary muscles first, leaving the involuntary, that is those of the heart and principal organs which this system governs, unaffected for the time being.

Imagine, then, Anderson, his red head damp, and clammy with the sweat of fear, his eyes moving quickly and with a terrified expression, his breath coming in short, sobbing gasps, lying on the thick skin rug in front of the little fire-place. Imagine him, I say, when he saw me, whom he thought to have put to sleep for hours, move slowly off the sofa, and walk towards him with the smile of the victor.