“I tell you true, I am not mad;
observe my way of speech herein.
How clear each image might be had,
in my account of these here sins.  

“Yes, sir! I won’t lie. I hate lies—
and liars, too—them most of all.
And that damned, deserving-to-die,
Sir Petral has that wherewithal.  

“Well. He had that wherewithal.  
All I did was take it out of him.
It was in his heart, see, there, there, through which the blood would crawl.
And I only fixed my bloody art on that one who deserved it. 

“‘Why did he deserve it?’ you ask?
what a bloody foolish question!
You’d not seen under his mask
if you’d make such a suggestion.”  

May as well ask if a pig deserves the slaughterhouse or if a trap deserves the mouse— “
“Yes, sir, yes,”
—he got what was coming to him, I was the cat—
“I do confess.”
—and all he was was a louse,
and that is all there is to that.

“And you think me, I, mad?
Would a madman lie?
Would a madman know she’s about to die?
Only observe how well I know. How bad.”