8/18 Verkimier, foolish man! was a smoker. Slowly, with no more apparent motion than the hour-hand on the face of a watch, he let his hand glide into his coat-pocket and took out the box of fusees. The tiger seemed uneasy, but the bold man never for one instant ceased to glare, and no disturbed expression or hasty movement gave the tiger the slightest excuse for a spring. Bringing the box up by painfully slow degrees in front of his nose the man opened it, took out a fusee, struck it, and revealed the blue binoculars! The effect on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. |