The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

themselves in a close and dim sort of bar-parlour, at a stained wooden table with one wooden leg. The room was so small and dark,

gory politely. "The pate de foie gras is n

ining it to be a joke. Accepting the vein of

some lobster

the man only said "Certainly, sir!"

. "I shall only have a creme de menthe myself; I have dined. But the champagne ca

he motionless Syme.

finally as by a thunderbolt by the actual appearance of the lobster. Syme tasted it, and f

ing. "I don't often have the luck to have a dream like this. It is new t

e. Ah, here comes your champagne! I admit that there may be a slight disproportion, let us say, between the inner arrangements of this ex

sked Syme, emptying

gory. "We are the serious anarchi

tly. "You do yoursel

s about everything,

r a pause

little, don't put it down to your inroads into the ch

e with perfect calm; "but I trust I can behave l

ry, producing a cigar-c

let out a long cloud of smoke. It is not a little to his credit that he performed these rites with so much composure, for almost b

t," said Gregory; "i

lacidly, "a kind of scr

, shot down through the floor as if the earth had swallowed them. They went rattling down a kind of roaring chimney as rapidly as a lift cut loose, and they came with an abrupt bump to

small but heavy iron door. In the door there was a sort of hatchway or grating, and on this Gregory struck five times. A heavy voice with a foreign accent asked

teel. On a second glance, Syme saw that the glittering pattern was really made

these formalities," said Gregory

he passage lined with the steel weapons. With his long, fair hair and rather foppish frock-coat,

the appearance of a scientific lecture-theatre. There were no rifles or pistols in this apartment, but round the walls of it were hung more dubious and dreadful shapes, things that looked lik

was one of those quite arbitrary emotions, like jumping off a cliff or falling in love. Suffice it to say that you were an inexpressibly irritating fellow, and, to do you justice, you are still. I would break twenty oaths of secrecy for the

n, because, as you remember, you very wisely extorted from me a promise not to tell the police, a promise I shall certainly keep. So it is in

a mere branch of the Nonconformists. We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We wish to deny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honour and treachery, upon which

le eagerness, "I hope you will abolish them

second question,

der a public-house. You have a heavy iron door. You cannot pass it without submitting to the humiliation of calling yourself Mr. Chamberlain. You surround yourself with steel instruments which make the place, if I may say so,

ry sm

rchist, and you did not believe me. Nor do they believe me. Unle

and looked at him with i

iters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder, 'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once. Then I made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so much intelligence that a fool could see that I was quite poor. Then I tried being a major. Now I am a humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope, enough intellectual breadth to understand the position of those

is name?"

eard of, and they were heard of. He puts all his genius into not being heard of, and he is not heard of. But you cannot

ven pale for a mome

cipherable face. 'You want a safe disguise, do you? You want a dress which will guarantee you harmless; a dress in which no one would ever look for a bomb?' I nodded. He suddenly lifted his lion's voice. 'Why, then, dress up as an anarchist, you fool!' he roared so that the room sho

with some respect in

he said. "It is re

r a pause

this tremendous Pr

. It is curious you should mention the matter, because the very night you have dropped in (if I may so express it) is the night on which our London branch, which assembles in this room, has to elect its own deputy to fill a vacancy in

led across the room with a s

o you something that I would not say in so many words to the anarchists who will be coming to the room in about ten minutes. We shall, of course, go through a form of election; b

me heartily, "I congratul

tion, and walked across t

r me on this table," he said, "and the cerem

out on examination to be a sword-stick, a large Colt's revolver, a sandwich case, and a formid

stick, stuff these other things into my pocket, step out of a door in this cavern, which opens on the river, where th

his usual insolent languor, got to his

w? Why do I positively like you, Gregory?" He paused a moment, and then a

ul silence again, an

act accordingly. Gregory, I gave you a promise before I came into this place. That promise I would

asked Grego

ot tell your secret to the police. Will you swear by Humanity, or whatever bea

he staring Gregory. "H

e a secret." Then after

avely for a few moments,

you. Yes, I will swear not to tell the anarchists anything you tel

g, grey trousers' pockets. Almost as he did so there came five knocks on t

n by saying that your expedient of dressing up as an aimless poet is not confined

ring up straight, b

?" he asked in a

a police detective. But I thi

epeated twice and thrice, and then thirty times, and the crowd of Joseph C