The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

," said the Professor sadl

re," said Syme; "you drink

e off. So that when I am among friends, and have no need at all to disguise myself, I still can't help speaking slow and wrinkling my forehead-just as if it were my forehead. I can be quite happy, you understand,

help thinking that apart from all

ed a little and loo

with you. Yes, I have rather a heavy cloud in my head. There is a

aid in a

play th

ple wonder, "I'm suppos

ther did not s

great cloud

rofessor said out of the ca

ust as well if you co

said Syme, "y

the President, of course, who is so seriously startling and formidable as that little grinning fellow in goggles. He has not perhaps the white-hot enthusiasm unto death, the mad martyrdom for anarchy, which marks the Secretary. But then that very fanaticism in the Secretary has a human pathos, and is almost a redeeming trait. But t

t this unique monster will be so

erview and come out sane or alive, we must have some code of signals between us that this brute will not see. I have made a rough alphabetical cypher

ot take him long to learn how he might convey simple messages by what would seem to be idle taps upon a table or knee. But wine and companionship had always the effect of insp

y-"words that we are likely to want, fine shades of m

the Professor plaintively. "You

ead sagaciously, "we must have 'lush'-

ssor furiously, "that we are goin

introduced without appearing forced. We might say, 'Dr. Bull, as a revolutionist, you remember that a t

said the other, "th

guage of yours had a wider scope. I suppose we could not extend it from the fingers to the toes? That wou

end with a stern sim

e. He was awakened next morning while the east was still sealed with darkn

rious way that all the safety and sociability of the night before fell with the bedclothes off him, and he stood up in an air of cold

e pulled on his trousers, "I dreamt of that alpha

n front of him with eyes the colour of a

'm considered good at these things, and it was a g

eyes were wide open, and he wo

did it t

ssor did

a sudden anger that had something like fear underneath

s a friend? What did he know, except that the man had been at the anarchist breakfast and had told him a ridiculous tale? How improbable it was that there should be another friend there beside Gogol! Was this man's silence a sensational way of declaring war? Was this

od there as voiceless as a statue, his five dumb fingers were dancing alive upon the dead t

like this. We mu

answer with the im

et's get out

in silence; but as Syme took h

y other flight they passed a window; each window showed them a pale and tragic dawn lifting itself laboriously over London. From each the innumerable roofs of slate looked like the leaden surges of a grey, troubled sea after rain. Syme was increasingly conscious that his new adventure had somehow a quality of cold sanity worse than the wild adventures of the past. Last night, for instance, the tall tenements had seemed to him like a tower in a dream. As he now went up

, white dawn edged with banks of a kind of coarse red, more like red clay than

table, he remembered what the memory was-the French Revolution. There should have been the black outline of a guillotine against that heavy red and white of the morning. Dr.

, white light of morning coming from one side creating sharp shadows, made him seem both more pale and more angular than he had looked at the breakfast on the balcony. Thus the two black glasses th

Professor had spoken. He set chairs for both of them, and going to a peg behind the door, proceeded to put o

I'm sorry to disturb you so early, comrade," said he, with a careful resumption of the slow de Worms manner. "You have no doubt made all the arrangement

aze on them without speaking. The Profess

an get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to act on it. I will, however, r

rrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the Professor's makeup and all his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly spectac

as occurred to us and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is one which you ma

o was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy

at bravado of improvisation which al

anks to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Sav

or I can get

eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he wou

came here together to see what use you would be inclined

ithout the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, wh

a pause in his monologue, sig

d, "It is quite

wered, "Extra

d, "I am

orted, "You a

, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You

on his friend's fingers. Th

his merely verbal monolog

ngers, "that it resembles that sudden smell of the

on disdaine

is positive, as is the passiona

iddle of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the

. B

move, but they could have sworn that under h

e and courteous, "would you do me a small favour? W

ozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life and for

op, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames.

emical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like

on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been tu

azel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of

he Pope. It was the spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black ey

ence," said the Professor shakily. "Bu

! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed bo

e other in an ap

myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my

t his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then the third man b

oy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm in the force r

towards the door, that the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and

all right, there were more damned detectives than t

asily," said Bull; "we

ding the stairs, but his

four against three-we were not so

t down the sta

ntil they reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and h

ng quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would

e, "contributed to my blue funk! But the wor

an laughed

ad been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting them by ever looking like a criminal. But at last I was brought before some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a m

that?" a

in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles w

suddenly fla

asked. "I thought

ked in a pitch-dark room like a coalcellar.

conceived it," s

new idea," sai

for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a railway carriage be

use the President had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw the President somewhere, smiling out

and," asked the Professor. "Was it long

"I've timed it all. He'll sti

Calais," said the Professor

Dr. Bull fell for the first time.

suppose, we ought

was a real modern pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casui

silly oath I took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is t

is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's

id Syme. "I knew you would dec

said D

u took off you

the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels c

the same kind of morality or immorality, so

te right; and we must hurry up, for I can

perhaps the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge.

er three men," said the P

silent for a second

e cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong

you talking about?"

id Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode behi

head," said the lit

argent a chevron gules charged with three cro

zed Syme roughly

said. "Are you seasick or

ent. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my

he went before them his step was slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he pointed with