The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

his incomprehensible man from the fierce council, after all, had certainly pursued him. If the man had one character as a paralytic and another character as a pursuer, the antithesis might ma

pot of ale before the prof

sh scamper was some sort of friendly signal that he ought to have understood. Perhaps it was a ritual. Perhaps the new Thursday was always chased along Cheapside, as the new Lord Mayor is always escorted along it. He was ju

u a pol

o brutal and actual as this. Even his great presence of mind coul

guely. "Whatever made you think of

the Professor patiently. "I thought you

ng wildly. "Have I by any chance got a number stuck on to me somewhere? Have my bo

th a gravity that gave no hope, but

so gradually into the policeman, that I myself can never detect the shade. The monkey is only the policeman that may be. Perhaps a maiden lady on Clapha

old man, ignoring all Syme's improvised an

to stone, but his

ridiculous," he be

hand passionately on the rick

ering spy?" he shrieked in a high, crazy voice.

like a man standing o

ar falsely, will you be damned? Will you be sure that the devil dances at your funeral? Will you see that the nightmare sits on your grave? Will ther

oss the table, and put up his larg

tish police," said S

ck in his chair with a cur

y," he said,

sending back the bench

hat?" he said thic

with you. I am in the British police force; but as you tell me you are not in the British police force, I can only say that I met you in a dynamiters' club. I suppose I ought to arre

of the table lay back and laughed at him. He did not for the moment ask any questions of detail; he only knew the happy and silly fact that this shadow, which had pursued him with an intolerable oppression of peril, was only the shadow of a friend trying to catch him up. He knew simultaneously that he was a fool and a free man. For with any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. There comes a certain point in such

, cans, clamorous voices, sudden struggles and stampedes, there was somet

v'nor?" asked one wonderi

nd went off again into the ag

rofessor, "or you'll get hysterical.

drunk your mi

of the bloody anarchists? We're all Christians in this room, though perhaps," he added, glancing around at the reeling crowd, "not strict ones. Finish

g at him with a

ried; "of course, you're

It's rather an elaborate make-up. As to whether I'm an old man

me impatiently, "there's n

her dispassionately. "

dea of the paralytic Professor being really a young actor dressed up as if for the foot

or drank and wipe

sked, "that that man

" answered Syme in some s

o called himself de Worms. "I thought the Presiden

id Syme, with his rather reckless laughter.

Professor grimly; "so

e table with a

ed. "Three out of seven is a fighting numbe

de Worms darkened, a

we had been three hundred we c

d against four?" asked Syme,

h sobriety, "not if we were

mind as startling as a coloured photograph, and he remarked this difference between Sunday and all his satellites, that their faces, however fierce or sinister, became gr

ents, and then Syme's speech came with a r

"it is intolerable. Are

d gazed at Syme with large, wide-open,

e said mildly.

ose to his feet erect, like an insulted

by God that I will seek out this man whom I fear until I find him, and strike him on the mout

he staring Pro

e; "and no man should leave in the uni

He made an effort to speak, but Syme went on in a low

ike a tree? Fight the thing that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergyman who gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his death-bed the great robb

he ceiling, one of th

a fixed sta

alling star," said Sym

sture drew the Profess

th a sort of benevolent bewilderm

"I am going to prevent this

nception how?" i

yme with equ

hole arrangements for the atrocity were left in the private hands of the Marquis and Dr. Bull. The Marquis is by this time probably crossing the Channel.

d Syme. "And we don

curious, absent-minded way,

me?" asked Syme

id the Professor, and took

at him with a sort

d sharply. "Will you join m

be entirely in the manner of your own philosophical rhetoric. You think that it is possible to pull down the President. I know that it is impossible,

which reflected the flaming lamps irregularly, and by accident, like fragments of some other and fallen world. Syme felt almost dazed as he stepped through this growing confusion

ou going?" S

just round the corner to see whether Dr. Bull ha

d Syme. "Does he liv

ives some way off, on the other side of the river, b

lmost to overhang it, a bulk and cluster of those tall tenements, dotted with lighted windows, and rising like factory chimneys to an almost insane height. Their special poise and position made on

y lighted turret abruptly went out, as if this black Ar

und on his heel, and struck

said, "the hygienic Do

sked Syme. "Does he l

ndow which you can't see. Come along and get som

Road. The Professor, who seemed to know his way about the neighbourhood, proceeded to a place where the line of lighted shops fell ba

everywhere, like fossils," explained the Professo

, "that this is the correspondi

Professor revere

sense of a new comradeship and comfort. Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conce

ittle tavern by the river. He did it idly and amply, in a luxuriant monologue, as a man speaks with very old friends. On his sid

g a glass of Macon; "a lot better than old Gogol's.

e up as the abstract or platonic ideal of an anarchist. But I am a realist. I am a portrait painte

erstand you,

"I am a portrait of the celebrated Profes

" said Syme. "But doesn't he know t

enough," replied hi

oesn't he d

ed him," answer

yourself,"

rgy, he said, was the All. He was lame, shortsighted, and partially paralytic. When I met him I was in a frivolous mood, and I disliked him so much that I resolved to imitate him. If I had been a draughtsman I would have drawn a caricature. I was only an actor, I could only act a caricature. I made myself up into what was meant for a wild exaggeration of the old Professor's dirty old self. When I went into the room full of his supporters I expected to be received with a roar of laughter, or (if they were too far gone) with a roar of indignation at the insult. I cannot describe the surprise I felt when my entrance was received with a respectful silence, followed (when I had first opened my lips) with a murmur of admiration. The curse of the perfect

d have worked out the principle that evolution is only negation, since there inheres in it the introduction of lacuna, which are an essential of differentiation.' I replied quite scornfully, 'You read all that up in Pinckwerts; the notion that involution functioned eugenically was exposed long ago by Glumpe.' It is unnecessary for me to say that there never were such people as Pinckwerts and Glumpe. But the people all round (rather to my surprise) seemed to remember them quite well, and the Professor, finding that the learned and mysterious method left him rather at the mercy of an enemy slightly deficient in scruples, fell back upon a more popular form of wit. 'I see,' he sneered, 'you p

his dirty old beard for a night's practical joke, b

nt, 'Yes, I am wanted-by the oppressed of the world. You are arresting me on the charge of being the great anarchist, Professor de Worms.' The policeman impassively consulted a paper in his hand, 'No, sir,' he said civilly, 'at least, not exactly, sir. I am arresting you on the charge of not being the celebrated anarchist, Professor de Worms.' This charge, if it was criminal at all, was certainly the lighter of the two, and I went along with the man, doubtful, but not greatly disma

own his kni

because you talked t

ms nodded and dr