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44 evening. My mind had but one objective—that respirator.

How was I to get hold of it without his knowledge? Only a few moments were needed to introduce the deadly germs of pneumonia into it, and then, once he had inhaled a breath, the affair was finished.

I decided to try next day. I dare not delay.

He might leave at any day, at any hour, and certainly I could not carry such savage and death-dealing organisms about with me indefinitely. No, I had to manage it somehow immediately, and so determined was I that I paid a visit to the laboratory next afternoon, knowing that my friend Fabris was otherwise engaged. I took away one of the eight small culture-tubes labelled "diplococcus lanceolatus," and I assure you that when I placed it, carefully wrapped in a roll of lint which I had brought with me, within my waistcoat pocket, I longed most heartily to have an early opportunity of dispensing with it.

What if someone jostled me heavily, or I fell—or any one of the many small possible accidents occurred? Then I myself stood a great chance of inhaling, or becoming inoculated on my clothes or hands with this particularly virulent germ.