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Norris, Frank, 1870-1902

"Vandover and the Brute"

As Vandover leaned from his window, looking out into the
night with eyes that saw nothing, the college slogan rose again from the
great crowd of students who still continued to hold the streets.
"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
He turned back into the room, groping among the bottles on his washstand
for his bromide of potassium. As he poured out the required dose into
the teaspoon his hand twitched again sharply, flirting the medicine
over his bared neck and chest, exposed by the bathrobe which he had left
open at the throat. It was cold, and he shivered a bit as he wiped it
dry with the back of his hand.
He knew very well that his nervous attack was coming on again. As he set
down the bottle upon the washstand he muttered to himself, "Now I'm
going to have a night of it." He began to walk the floor again with
great strides, fighting with all his pitiful, shattered mind against the
increasing hysteria, trying to keep out of his brain the strange
hallucination that assailed it from time to time, the hallucination of a
thing four-footed, a thing that sulked and snarled.


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