Holden's face was deadly. His hands were clenched.
Johnny Simms said with a fine boyish frankness:
"I'm sorry, Cochrane! No hard feelings?"
"Yes," Cochrane snapped. "Hard feelings! I've got them!"
He took Holden's arm. He steered him up the steps. Holden resisted for
the fraction of a second, and Cochrane gripped his arm tighter. He got
him up to the deck above.
"If I'd been here," said Holden, unsteadily, "I'd have killed him--if he
hit Alicia! Psychopath or no psychopath--"
"Shut up," said Cochrane firmly. "He shot at me! And in my small way I'm
a psychopath too, Bill. My psychosis is that I don't like his kind of
psychosis. I am psychotically devoted to sense and my possibly quaint
idea of decency. I am abnormally concerned with the real world--and
you'd better come back to it! Look here! I'm pathologically in revolt
against such imbecilities as an overcrowded Earth and people being
afraid of their jobs and people going crackpot from despair. You don't
want me to get cured of that, do you? Then get hold of yourself!"
Bill Holden swallowed. He was still white. But he managed to grimace.
"You're right.
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