"Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined. You say
that a poet is always an anarchist. I disagree; but I hope at least
that he is always a sportsman. Permit me, here and now, to swear as
a Christian, and promise as a good comrade and a fellow-artist,
that I will not report anything of this, whatever it is, to the
police. And now, in the name of Colney Hatch, what is it?"

"I think," said Gregory, with placid irrelevancy, "that we will
call a cab."

He gave two long whistles, and a hansom came rattling down the
road. The two got into it in silence. Gregory gave through the
trap the address of an obscure public-house on the Chiswick bank
of the river. The cab whisked itself away again, and in it these
two fantastics quitted their fantastic town.



CHAPTER II

THE SECRET OF GABRIEL SYME

THE cab pulled up before a particularly dreary and greasy beershop,
into which Gregory rapidly conducted his companion. They seated
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,
that very little could be seen of the attendant who was summoned,
beyond a vague and dark impression of something bulky and bearded.