The vast blank space of North London was flying by; the very pace gave us a sense of its immensity and its meanness. It was, as it were, a base infinitude, a squalid eternity2, and we felt the real horror of the poor parts of London, the horror that is so totally missed and misrepresented by the sensational3 novelists who depict4 it as being a matter of narrow streets, filthy5 houses, criminals and maniacs6, and dens7 of vice9. In a narrow street, in a den8 of vice, you do not expect civilization, you do not expect order. But the horror of this was the fact that there was civilization, that there was order, but that civilisation10 only showed its morbidity11, and order only its monotony. No one would say, in going through a criminal slum, “I see no statues. I notice no cathedrals.” But here there were public buildings; only they were mostly lunatic asylums12. Here there were statues; only they were mostly statues of railway engineers and philanthropists—two dingy13 classes of men united by their common contempt for the people. Here there were churches; only they were the churches of dim and erratic14 sects15, Agapemonites or Irvingites. Here, above all, there were broad roads and vast crossings and tramway lines and hospitals and all the real marks of civilization. But though one never knew, in one sense, what one would see next, there was one thing we knew we should not see—anything really great, central, of the first class, anything that humanity had adored. And with revulsion indescribable our emotions returned, I think, to those really close and crooked16 entries, to those really mean streets, to those genuine slums which lie round the Thames and the City, in which nevertheless a real possibility remains17 that at any chance corner the great cross of the great cathedral of Wren18 may strike down the street like a thunderbolt.
“But you must always remember also,” said Grant to me, in his heavy abstracted way, when I had urged this view, “that the very vileness19 of the life of these ordered plebeian20 places bears witness to the victory of the human soul. I agree with you. I agree that they have to live in something worse than barbarism. They have to live in a fourth-rate civilization. But yet I am practically certain that the majority of people here are good people. And being good is an adventure far more violent and daring than sailing round the world. Besides—”
“Go on,” I said.
No answer came.
“Go on,” I said, looking up.
The big blue eyes of Basil Grant were standing21 out of his head and he was paying no attention to me. He was staring over the side of the tram.
“What is the matter?” I asked, peering over also.
“It is very odd,” said Grant at last, grimly, “that I should have been caught out like this at the very moment of my optimism. I said all these people were good, and there is the wickedest man in England.”
“Where?” I asked, leaning over further, “where?”
“Oh, I was right enough,” he went on, in that strange continuous and sleepy tone which always angered his hearers at acute moments, “I was right enough when I said all these people were good. They are heroes; they are saints. Now and then they may perhaps steal a spoon or two; they may beat a wife or two with the poker22. But they are saints all the same; they are angels; they are robed in white; they are clad with wings and haloes—at any rate compared to that man.”
“Which man?” I cried again, and then my eye caught the figure at which Basil's bull's eyes were glaring.
He was a slim, smooth person, passing very quickly among the quickly passing crowd, but though there was nothing about him sufficient to attract a startled notice, there was quite enough to demand a curious consideration when once that notice was attracted. He wore a black top-hat, but there was enough in it of those strange curves whereby the decadent23 artist of the eighties tried to turn the top-hat into something as rhythmic24 as an Etruscan vase. His hair, which was largely grey, was curled with the instinct of one who appreciated the gradual beauty of grey and silver. The rest of his face was oval and, I thought, rather Oriental; he had two black tufts of moustache.
“What has he done?” I asked.
“I am not sure of the details,” said Grant, “but his besetting25 sin is a desire to intrigue26 to the disadvantage of others. Probably he has adopted some imposture27 or other to effect his plan.”
“What plan?” I asked. “If you know all about him, why don't you tell me why he is the wickedest man in England? What is his name?”
Basil Grant stared at me for some moments.
“I think you've made a mistake in my meaning,” he said. “I don't know his name. I never saw him before in my life.”
“Never saw him before!” I cried, with a kind of anger; “then what in heaven's name do you mean by saying that he is the wickedest man in England?”
“I meant what I said,” said Basil Grant calmly. “The moment I saw that man, I saw all these people stricken with a sudden and splendid innocence28. I saw that while all ordinary poor men in the streets were being themselves, he was not being himself. I saw that all the men in these slums, cadgers, pickpockets29, hooligans, are all, in the deepest sense, trying to be good. And I saw that that man was trying to be evil.”
“But if you never saw him before—” I began.
“In God's name, look at his face,” cried out Basil in a voice that startled the driver. “Look at the eyebrows30. They mean that infernal pride which made Satan so proud that he sneered31 even at heaven when he was one of the first angels in it. Look at his moustaches, they are so grown as to insult humanity. In the name of the sacred heavens look at his hair. In the name of God and the stars, look at his hat.”
I stirred uncomfortably.
“But, after all,” I said, “this is very fanciful—perfectly32 absurd. Look at the mere33 facts. You have never seen the man before, you—”
“Oh, the mere facts,” he cried out in a kind of despair. “The mere facts! Do you really admit—are you still so sunk in superstitions34, so clinging to dim and prehistoric35 altars, that you believe in facts? Do you not trust an immediate36 impression?”
“Well, an immediate impression may be,” I said, “a little less practical than facts.”
“Bosh,” he said. “On what else is the whole world run but immediate impressions? What is more practical? My friend, the philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres. Why do you refuse or accept a clerk? Do you measure his skull37? Do you read up his physiological38 state in a handbook? Do you go upon facts at all? Not a scrap39. You accept a clerk who may save your business—you refuse a clerk that may rob your till, entirely40 upon those immediate mystical impressions under the pressure of which I pronounce, with a perfect sense of certainty and sincerity41, that that man walking in that street beside us is a humbug42 and a villain43 of some kind.”
“You always put things well,” I said, “but, of course, such things cannot immediately be put to the test.”
Basil sprang up straight and swayed with the swaying car.
“Let us get off and follow him,” he said. “I bet you five pounds it will turn out as I say.”
The man with the curved silver hair and the curved Eastern face walked along for some time, his long splendid frock-coat flying behind him. Then he swung sharply out of the great glaring road and disappeared down an ill-lit alley45. We swung silently after him.
“This is an odd turning for a man of that kind to take,” I said.
“A man of what kind?” asked my friend.
“Well,” I said, “a man with that kind of expression and those boots. I thought it rather odd, to tell the truth, that he should be in this part of the world at all.”
“Ah, yes,” said Basil, and said no more.
We tramped on, looking steadily46 in front of us. The elegant figure, like the figure of a black swan, was silhouetted47 suddenly against the glare of intermittent48 gaslight and then swallowed again in night. The intervals49 between the lights were long, and a fog was thickening the whole city. Our pace, therefore, had become swift and mechanical between the lamp-posts; but Basil came to a standstill suddenly like a reined50 horse; I stopped also. We had almost run into the man. A great part of the solid darkness in front of us was the darkness of his body.
At first I thought he had turned to face us. But though we were hardly a yard off he did not realize that we were there. He tapped four times on a very low and dirty door in the dark, crabbed51 street. A gleam of gas cut the darkness as it opened slowly. We listened intently, but the interview was short and simple and inexplicable52 as an interview could be. Our exquisite53 friend handed in what looked like a paper or a card and said:
“At once. Take a cab.”
A heavy, deep voice from inside said:
“Right you are.”
And with a click we were in the blackness again, and striding after the striding stranger through a labyrinth54 of London lanes, the lights just helping55 us. It was only five o'clock, but winter and the fog had made it like midnight.
“This is really an extraordinary walk for the patent-leather boots,” I repeated.
As I tramped on I strained my eyes through the dusky atmosphere and tried to make out the direction described. For some ten minutes I wondered and doubted; at the end of that I saw that my friend was right. We were coming to the great dreary57 spaces of fashionable London—more dreary, one must admit, even than the dreary plebeian spaces.
“This is very extraordinary!” said Basil Grant, as we turned into Berkeley Square.
“What is extraordinary?” I asked. “I thought you said it was quite natural.”
“I do not wonder,” answered Basil, “at his walking through nasty streets; I do not wonder at his going to Berkeley Square. But I do wonder at his going to the house of a very good man.”
“What very good man?” I asked with exasperation58.
“The operation of time is a singular one,” he said with his imperturbable59 irrelevancy60. “It is not a true statement of the case to say that I have forgotten my career when I was a judge and a public man. I remember it all vividly61, but it is like remembering some novel. But fifteen years ago I knew this square as well as Lord Rosebery does, and a confounded long sight better than that man who is going up the steps of old Beaumont's house.”
“A perfectly good fellow. Lord Beaumont of Foxwood—don't you know his name? He is a man of transparent63 sincerity, a nobleman who does more work than a navvy, a socialist64, an anarchist65, I don't know what; anyhow, he's a philosopher and philanthropist. I admit he has the slight disadvantage of being, beyond all question, off his head. He has that real disadvantage which has arisen out of the modern worship of progress and novelty; and he thinks anything odd and new must be an advance. If you went to him and proposed to eat your grandmother, he would agree with you, so long as you put it on hygienic and public grounds, as a cheap alternative to cremation66. So long as you progress fast enough it seems a matter of indifference67 to him whether you are progressing to the stars or the devil. So his house is filled with an endless succession of literary and political fashions; men who wear long hair because it is romantic; men who wear short hair because it is medical; men who walk on their feet only to exercise their hands; and men who walk on their hands for fear of tiring their feet. But though the inhabitants of his salons68 are generally fools, like himself, they are almost always, like himself, good men. I am really surprised to see a criminal enter there.”
“My good fellow,” I said firmly, striking my foot on the pavement, “the truth of this affair is very simple. To use your own eloquent70 language, you have the 'slight disadvantage' of being off your head. You see a total stranger in a public street; you choose to start certain theories about his eyebrows. You then treat him as a burglar because he enters an honest man's door. The thing is too monstrous71. Admit that it is, Basil, and come home with me. Though these people are still having tea, yet with the distance we have to go, we shall be late for dinner.”
“I thought,” he said, “that I had outlived vanity.”
“What do you want now?” I cried.
“I want,” he cried out, “what a girl wants when she wears her new frock; I want what a boy wants when he goes in for a clanging match with a monitor—I want to show somebody what a fine fellow I am. I am as right about that man as I am about your having a hat on your head. You say it cannot be tested. I say it can. I will take you to see my old friend Beaumont. He is a delightful73 man to know.”
“Do you really mean—?” I began.
“I will apologize,” he said calmly, “for our not being dressed for a call,” and walking across the vast misty74 square, he walked up the dark stone steps and rang at the bell.
A severe servant in black and white opened the door to us: on receiving my friend's name his manner passed in a flash from astonishment75 to respect. We were ushered76 into the house very quickly, but not so quickly but that our host, a white-haired man with a fiery77 face, came out quickly to meet us.
“My dear fellow,” he cried, shaking Basil's hand again and again, “I have not seen you for years. Have you been—er—” he said, rather wildly, “have you been in the country?”
“Not for all that time,” answered Basil, smiling. “I have long given up my official position, my dear Philip, and have been living in a deliberate retirement78. I hope I do not come at an inopportune moment.”
“An inopportune moment,” cried the ardent80 gentleman. “You come at the most opportune79 moment I could imagine. Do you know who is here?”
“I do not,” answered Grant, with gravity. Even as he spoke81 a roar of laughter came from the inner room.
“Basil,” said Lord Beaumont solemnly, “I have Wimpole here.”
“And who is Wimpole?”
“Basil,” cried the other, “you must have been in the country. You must have been in the antipodes. You must have been in the moon. Who is Wimpole? Who was Shakespeare?”
“As to who Shakespeare was,” answered my friend placidly82, “my views go no further than thinking that he was not Bacon. More probably he was Mary Queen of Scots. But as to who Wimpole is—” and his speech also was cloven with a roar of laughter from within.
“Wimpole!” cried Lord Beaumont, in a sort of ecstasy83. “Haven't you heard of the great modern wit? My dear fellow, he has turned conversation, I do not say into an art—for that, perhaps, it always was but into a great art, like the statuary of Michael Angelo—an art of masterpieces. His repartees, my good friend, startle one like a man shot dead. They are final; they are—”
Again there came the hilarious85 roar from the room, and almost with the very noise of it, a big, panting apoplectic86 old gentleman came out of the inner house into the hall where we were standing.
“Now, my dear chap,” began Lord Beaumont hastily.
“I tell you, Beaumont, I won't stand it,” exploded the large old gentleman. “I won't be made game of by a twopenny literary adventurer like that. I won't be made a guy. I won't—”
“Come, come,” said Beaumont feverishly88. “Let me introduce you. This is Mr Justice Grant—that is, Mr Grant. Basil, I am sure you have heard of Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh.”
“Who has not?” asked Grant, and bowed to the worthy89 old baronet, eyeing him with some curiosity. He was hot and heavy in his momentary90 anger, but even that could not conceal91 the noble though opulent outline of his face and body, the florid white hair, the Roman nose, the body stalwart though corpulent, the chin aristocratic though double. He was a magnificent courtly gentleman; so much of a gentleman that he could show an unquestionable weakness of anger without altogether losing dignity; so much of a gentleman that even his faux pas were well-bred.
“I am distressed93 beyond expression, Beaumont,” he said gruffly, “to fail in respect to these gentlemen, and even more especially to fail in it in your house. But it is not you or they that are in any way concerned, but that flashy half-caste jackanapes—”
At this moment a young man with a twist of red moustache and a sombre air came out of the inner room. He also did not seem to be greatly enjoying the intellectual banquet within.
“I think you remember my friend and secretary, Mr Drummond,” said Lord Beaumont, turning to Grant, “even if you only remember him as a schoolboy.”
“Perfectly,” said the other. Mr Drummond shook hands pleasantly and respectfully, but the cloud was still on his brow. Turning to Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh, he said:
“I was sent by Lady Beaumont to express her hope that you were not going yet, Sir Walter. She says she has scarcely seen anything of you.”
The old gentleman, still red in the face, had a temporary internal struggle; then his good manners triumphed, and with a gesture of obeisance94 and a vague utterance95 of, “If Lady Beaumont... a lady, of course,” he followed the young man back into the salon69. He had scarcely been deposited there half a minute before another peal96 of laughter told that he had (in all probability) been scored off again.
“Of course, I can excuse dear old Cholmondeliegh,” said Beaumont, as he helped us off with our coats. “He has not the modern mind.”
“What is the modern mind?” asked Grant.
“Oh, it's enlightened, you know, and progressive—and faces the facts of life seriously.” At this moment another roar of laughter came from within.
“I only ask,” said Basil, “because of the last two friends of yours who had the modern mind; one thought it wrong to eat fishes and the other thought it right to eat men. I beg your pardon—this way, if I remember right.”
“Do you know,” said Lord Beaumont, with a sort of feverish87 entertainment, as he trotted97 after us towards the interior, “I can never quite make out which side you are on. Sometimes you seem so liberal and sometimes so reactionary98. Are you a modern, Basil?”
“No,” said Basil, loudly and cheerfully, as he entered the crowded drawing-room.
This caused a slight diversion, and some eyes were turned away from our slim friend with the Oriental face for the first time that afternoon. Two people, however, still looked at him. One was the daughter of the house, Muriel Beaumont, who gazed at him with great violet eyes and with the intense and awful thirst of the female upper class for verbal amusement and stimulus99. The other was Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh, who looked at him with a still and sullen100 but unmistakable desire to throw him out of the window.
He sat there, coiled rather than seated on the easy chair; everything from the curves of his smooth limbs to the coils of his silvered hair suggesting the circles of a serpent more than the straight limbs of a man—the unmistakable, splendid serpentine101 gentleman we had seen walking in North London, his eyes shining with repeated victory.
“What I can't understand, Mr Wimpole,” said Muriel Beaumont eagerly, “is how you contrive102 to treat all this so easily. You say things quite philosophical103 and yet so wildly funny. If I thought of such things, I'm sure I should laugh outright104 when the thought first came.”
“I agree with Miss Beaumont,” said Sir Walter, suddenly exploding with indignation. “If I had thought of anything so futile105, I should find it difficult to keep my countenance106.”
“Difficult to keep your countenance,” cried Mr Wimpole, with an air of alarm; “oh, do keep your countenance! Keep it in the British Museum.”
Every one laughed uproariously, as they always do at an already admitted readiness, and Sir Walter, turning suddenly purple, shouted out:
“Do you know who you are talking to, with your confounded tomfooleries?”
“I never talk tomfooleries,” said the other, “without first knowing my audience.”
Grant walked across the room and tapped the red-moustached secretary on the shoulder. That gentleman was leaning against the wall regarding the whole scene with a great deal of gloom; but, I fancied, with very particular gloom when his eyes fell on the young lady of the house rapturously listening to Wimpole.
“May I have a word with you outside, Drummond?” asked Grant. “It is about business. Lady Beaumont will excuse us.”
I followed my friend, at his own request, greatly wondering, to this strange external interview. We passed abruptly107 into a kind of side room out of the hall.
“Drummond,” said Basil sharply, “there are a great many good people, and a great many sane108 people here this afternoon. Unfortunately, by a kind of coincidence, all the good people are mad, and all the sane people are wicked. You are the only person I know of here who is honest and has also some common sense. What do you make of Wimpole?”
Mr Secretary Drummond had a pale face and red hair; but at this his face became suddenly as red as his moustache.
“I am not a fair judge of him,” he said.
“Why not?” asked Grant.
“Because I hate him like hell,” said the other, after a long pause and violently.
Neither Grant nor I needed to ask the reason; his glances towards Miss Beaumont and the stranger were sufficiently109 illuminating110. Grant said quietly:
“But before—before you came to hate him, what did you really think of him?”
“I am in a terrible difficulty,” said the young man, and his voice told us, like a clear bell, that he was an honest man. “If I spoke about him as I feel about him now, I could not trust myself. And I should like to be able to say that when I first saw him I thought he was charming. But again, the fact is I didn't. I hate him, that is my private affair. But I also disapprove111 of him—really I do believe I disapprove of him quite apart from my private feelings. When first he came, I admit he was much quieter, but I did not like, so to speak, the moral swell112 of him. Then that jolly old Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh got introduced to us, and this fellow, with his cheap-jack wit, began to score off the old man in the way he does now. Then I felt that he must be a bad lot; it must be bad to fight the old and the kindly113. And he fights the poor old chap savagely114, unceasingly, as if he hated old age and kindliness115. Take, if you want it, the evidence of a prejudiced witness. I admit that I hate the man because a certain person admires him. But I believe that apart from that I should hate the man because old Sir Walter hates him.”
This speech affected116 me with a genuine sense of esteem117 and pity for the young man; that is, of pity for him because of his obviously hopeless worship of Miss Beaumont, and of esteem for him because of the direct realistic account of the history of Wimpole which he had given. Still, I was sorry that he seemed so steadily set against the man, and could not help referring it to an instinct of his personal relations, however nobly disguised from himself.
In the middle of these meditations118, Grant whispered in my ear what was perhaps the most startling of all interruptions.
“In the name of God, let's get away.”
I have never known exactly in how odd a way this odd old man affected me. I only know that for some reason or other he so affected me that I was, within a few minutes, in the street outside.
“This,” he said, “is a beastly but amusing affair.”
“What is?” I asked, baldly enough.
“This affair. Listen to me, my old friend. Lord and Lady Beaumont have just invited you and me to a grand dinner-party this very night, at which Mr Wimpole will be in all his glory. Well, there is nothing very extraordinary about that. The extraordinary thing is that we are not going.”
“Well, really,” I said, “it is already six o'clock and I doubt if we could get home and dress. I see nothing extraordinary in the fact that we are not going.”
“Don't you?” said Grant. “I'll bet you'll see something extraordinary in what we're doing instead.”
I looked at him blankly.
“Doing instead?” I asked. “What are we doing instead?”
“Why,” said he, “we are waiting for one or two hours outside this house on a winter evening. You must forgive me; it is all my vanity. It is only to show you that I am right. Can you, with the assistance of this cigar, wait until both Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh and the mystic Wimpole have left this house?”
“Certainly,” I said. “But I do not know which is likely to leave first. Have you any notion?”
“No,” he said. “Sir Walter may leave first in a glow of rage. Or again, Mr Wimpole may leave first, feeling that his last epigram is a thing to be flung behind him like a firework. And Sir Walter may remain some time to analyse Mr Wimpole's character. But they will both have to leave within reasonable time, for they will both have to get dressed and come back to dinner here tonight.”
As he spoke the shrill119 double whistle from the porch of the great house drew a dark cab to the dark portal. And then a thing happened that we really had not expected. Mr Wimpole and Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh came out at the same moment.
They paused for a second or two opposite each other in a natural doubt; then a certain geniality120, fundamental perhaps in both of them, made Sir Walter smile and say: “The night is foggy. Pray take my cab.”
Before I could count twenty the cab had gone rattling121 up the street with both of them. And before I could count twenty-three Grant had hissed122 in my ear:
“Run after the cab; run as if you were running from a mad dog—run.”
We pelted123 on steadily, keeping the cab in sight, through dark mazy streets. God only, I thought, knows why we are running at all, but we are running hard. Fortunately we did not run far. The cab pulled up at the fork of two streets and Sir Walter paid the cabman, who drove away rejoicing, having just come in contact with the more generous among the rich. Then the two men talked together as men do talk together after giving and receiving great insults, the talk which leads either to forgiveness or a duel—at least so it seemed as we watched it from ten yards off. Then the two men shook hands heartily124, and one went down one fork of the road and one down another.
Basil, with one of his rare gestures, flung his arms forward.
“Run after that scoundrel,” he cried; “let us catch him now.”
“Stop!” I shouted wildly to Grant. “That's the wrong turning.”
He ran on.
“Idiot!” I howled. “Sir Walter's gone down there. Wimpole has slipped us. He's half a mile down the other road. You're wrong... Are you deaf? You're wrong!”
“I don't think I am,” he panted, and ran on.
“But I saw him!” I cried. “Look in front of you. Is that Wimpole? It's the old man... What are you doing? What are we to do?”
“Keep running,” said Grant.
Running soon brought us up to the broad back of the pompous126 old baronet, whose white whiskers shone silver in the fitful lamplight. My brain was utterly127 bewildered. I grasped nothing.
“Of course,” I said, panting.
“Then help me to catch that man in front and hold him down. Do it at once when I say 'Now'. Now!”
We sprang on Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh, and rolled that portly old gentleman on his back. He fought with a commendable129 valour, but we got him tight. I had not the remotest notion why. He had a splendid and full-blooded vigour130; when he could not box he kicked, and we bound him; when he could not kick he shouted, and we gagged him. Then, by Basil's arrangement, we dragged him into a small court by the street side and waited. As I say, I had no notion why.
“I am sorry to incommode you,” said Basil calmly out of the darkness; “but I have made an appointment here.”
“An appointment!” I said blankly.
“Yes,” he said, glancing calmly at the apoplectic old aristocrat92 gagged on the ground, whose eyes were starting impotently from his head. “I have made an appointment here with a thoroughly131 nice young fellow. An old friend. Jasper Drummond his name is—you may have met him this afternoon at the Beaumonts. He can scarcely come though till the Beaumonts' dinner is over.”
For I do not know how many hours we stood there calmly in the darkness. By the time those hours were over I had thoroughly made up my mind that the same thing had happened which had happened long ago on the bench of a British Court of Justice. Basil Grant had gone mad. I could imagine no other explanation of the facts, with the portly, purple-faced old country gentleman flung there strangled on the floor like a bundle of wood.
After about four hours a lean figure in evening dress rushed into the court. A glimpse of gaslight showed the red moustache and white face of Jasper Drummond.
“Mr Grant,” he said blankly, “the thing is incredible. You were right; but what did you mean? All through this dinner-party, where dukes and duchesses and editors of Quarterlies had come especially to hear him, that extraordinary Wimpole kept perfectly silent. He didn't say a funny thing. He didn't say anything at all. What does it mean?”
“That is what it means,” he said.
Drummond, on observing a fat gentleman lying so calmly about the place, jumped back, as from a mouse.
“What?” he said weakly, “... what?”
Basil bent133 suddenly down and tore a paper out of Sir Walter's breastpocket, a paper which the baronet, even in his hampered134 state, seemed to make some effort to retain.
It was a large loose piece of white wrapping paper, which Mr Jasper Drummond read with a vacant eye and undisguised astonishment. As far as he could make out, it consisted of a series of questions and answers, or at least of remarks and replies, arranged in the manner of a catechism. The greater part of the document had been torn and obliterated135 in the struggle, but the termination remained. It ran as follows:
C. Says... Keep countenance.
W. Keep... British Museum.
C. Know whom talk... absurdities136.
W. Never talk absurdities without...
“What is it?” cried Drummond, flinging the paper down in a sort of final fury.
“What is it?” replied Grant, his voice rising into a kind of splendid chant. “What is it? It is a great new profession. A great new trade. A trifle immoral137, I admit, but still great, like piracy138.”
“A new trade,” repeated Grant, with a strange exultation140, “a new profession! What a pity it is immoral.”
“It is,” said Grant calmly, “the great new trade of the Organizer of Repartee84. This fat old gentleman lying on the ground strikes you, as I have no doubt, as very stupid and very rich. Let me clear his character. He is, like ourselves, very clever and very poor. He is also not really at all fat; all that is stuffing. He is not particularly old, and his name is not Cholmondeliegh. He is a swindler, and a swindler of a perfectly delightful and novel kind. He hires himself out at dinner-parties to lead up to other people's repartees. According to a preconcerted scheme (which you may find on that piece of paper), he says the stupid things he has arranged for himself, and his client says the clever things arranged for him. In short, he allows himself to be scored off for a guinea a night.”
“And this fellow Wimpole—” began Drummond with indignation.
“This fellow Wimpole,” said Basil Grant, smiling, “will not be an intellectual rival in the future. He had some fine things, elegance142 and silvered hair, and so on. But the intellect is with our friend on the floor.”
“Not at all,” said Basil indulgently; “he ought to be in the Club of Queer Trades.”
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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maniacs
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| n.疯子（maniac的复数形式） | |
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7
dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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8
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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9
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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10
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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11
morbidity
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| n.病态；不健全；发病；发病率 | |
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12
asylums
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| n.避难所( asylum的名词复数 )；庇护；政治避难；精神病院 | |
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13
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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14
erratic
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| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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15
sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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16
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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17
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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18
wren
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| n.鹪鹩；英国皇家海军女子服务队成员 | |
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19
vileness
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| n.讨厌，卑劣 | |
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20
plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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21
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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22
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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23
decadent
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| adj.颓废的，衰落的，堕落的 | |
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24
rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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25
besetting
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| adj.不断攻击的v.困扰( beset的现在分词 )；不断围攻；镶；嵌 | |
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26
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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27
imposture
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| n.冒名顶替，欺骗 | |
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28
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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29
pickpockets
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| n.扒手( pickpocket的名词复数 ) | |
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30
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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31
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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33
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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34
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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35
prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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36
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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37
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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38
physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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39
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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40
entirely
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|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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41
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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42
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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43
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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44
scuttle
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| v.急赶，疾走，逃避；n.天窗；舷窗 | |
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45
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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46
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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47
silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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48
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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49
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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50
reined
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| 勒缰绳使（马）停步( rein的过去式和过去分词 )； 驾驭； 严格控制； 加强管理 | |
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51
crabbed
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| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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53
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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54
labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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55
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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56
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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57
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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58
exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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59
imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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60
irrelevancy
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| n.不恰当，离题，不相干的事物 | |
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61
vividly
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|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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62
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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63
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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64
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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65
anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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66
cremation
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| n.火葬，火化 | |
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67
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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68
salons
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|
| n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅 | |
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69
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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70
eloquent
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|
| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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71
monstrous
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|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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72
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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73
delightful
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|
| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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74
misty
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|
| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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75
astonishment
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|
| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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76
ushered
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|
| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77
fiery
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|
| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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78
retirement
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|
| n.退休，退职 | |
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79
opportune
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|
| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
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80
ardent
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|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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81
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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82
placidly
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|
| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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83
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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84
repartee
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| n.机敏的应答 | |
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85
hilarious
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|
| adj.充满笑声的，欢闹的；[反]depressed | |
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86
apoplectic
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|
| adj.中风的；愤怒的；n.中风患者 | |
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87
feverish
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|
| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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88
feverishly
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|
| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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89
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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90
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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91
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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92
aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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93
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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94
obeisance
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| n.鞠躬，敬礼 | |
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95
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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96
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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97
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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98
reactionary
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|
| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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99
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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100
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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101
serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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102
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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103
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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104
outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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105
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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106
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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107
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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108
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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109
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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110
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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111
disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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112
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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113
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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114
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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115
kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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116
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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117
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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118
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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119
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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120
geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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121
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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122
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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123
pelted
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| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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124
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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125
juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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126
pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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127
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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128
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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129
commendable
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| adj.值得称赞的 | |
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130
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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131
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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132
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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133
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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134
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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135
obliterated
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|
| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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136
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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137
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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138
piracy
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| n.海盗行为，剽窃，著作权侵害 | |
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139
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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140
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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141
blasphemy
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| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
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142
elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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143
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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