The professor was looking helplessly from his
daughter to his wife, and from his wife to his daughter,
like a man who was convinced that his troubles
would never end. This new catastrophe created a
different kind of difficulty, but he considered that the
difficulties were as robust as had been the preceding
ones. He put on his hat and went out of the room.
He felt an impossibility of saying anything to
Coleman, but he felt that he must look upon him. He
must look upon this man and try to know from his
manner the measure of guilt. And incidentally he
longed for the machinery of a finished society which
prevents its parts from clashing, prevents it with its
great series of I law upon law, easily operative but
relentless. Here he felt as a man flung into the jungle
with his wife and daughter,
where they could become the victims of any sort of savagery.
His thought referred once more to what he considered the invaluable
services of Coleman, and as he observed them in conjunction
with the present accusation, he was simply dazed. It was then
possible that one man could play two such divergent parts. He
had not learned this at Washurst. But no; the world was not
such a bed of putrefaction. He would not believe it; he would
not believe it.
After adventures which require great nervous en. durance, it
is only upon the second or third night that the common man
sleeps hard. The students had expected to slumber like dogs on
the first night after their trials. but none slept long, And few
slept.
Coleman was the first man to arise. When he left the room
the students were just beginning to blink. He took his
dragoman among the shops and he bought there all the little
odds and ends which might go to make up the best breakfast in
Arta. If he had had news of certain talk he probably would not
have been buying breakfast for eleven people. Instead, he
would have been buying breakfast for one. During his absence
the students arose and performed their frugal toilets.
Considerable attention was paid to Coke by the others. " He
made a monkey of you," said Peter Tounley with unction. " He
twisted you until you looked like a wet, grey rag. You had
better leave this wise guy alone."
It was not the night nor was it meditation that had taught
Coke anything, but he seemed to have learned something from
the mere lapse of time. In appearance he was subdued, but he
managed to make a temporary jauntiness as he said : " Oh, I
don't know."
" Well, you ought to know," said he who was called Billie.
"You ought to know. You made an egregious snark of
yourself. Indeed, you sometimes resembled a boojum. Anyhow,
you were a plain chump. You exploded your face about
something of which you knew nothing, and I'm damned if I
believe you'd make even a good retriever."
"You're a half-bred water-spaniel," blurted Peter Tounley.
"And," he added, musingly, "that is a pretty low animal."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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