Syme took the cigar, clipped the end off with a cigar-cutter out
of his waistcoat pocket, put it in his mouth, lit it slowly, and
let out a long cloud of smoke. It is not a little to his credit
that he performed these rites with so much composure, for almost
before he had begun them the table at which he sat had begun to
revolve, first slowly, and then rapidly, as if at an insane
seance.

"You must not mind it," said Gregory; "it's a kind of screw."

"Quite so," said Syme placidly, "a kind of screw. How simple that
is!"

The next moment the smoke of his cigar, which had been wavering
across the room in snaky twists, went straight up as if from a
factory chimney, and the two, with their chairs and table, shot
down through the floor as if the earth had swallowed them. They
went rattling down a kind of roaring chimney as rapidly as a lift
cut loose, and they came with an abrupt bump to the bottom. But
when Gregory threw open a pair of doors and let in a red
subterranean light, Syme was still smoking with one leg thrown
over the other, and had not turned a yellow hair.

Gregory led him down a low, vaulted passage, at the end of which
was the red light. It was an enormous crimson lantern, nearly as
big as a fireplace, fixed over a small but heavy iron door. In the
door there was a sort of hatchway or grating, and on this Gregory
struck five times. A heavy voice with a foreign accent asked him
who he was. To this he gave the more or less unexpected reply,
"Mr. Joseph Chamberlain." The heavy hinges began to move; it was