"BURGUNDY is a jolly thing," said the Professor sadly, as he set his glass down.
"You don't look as if it were," said Syme; "you drink it as if it were medicine.""You must excuse my manner," said the Professor dismally, "my position is rather a curious one. Inside I am really bursting with boyish merriment; but I acted the paralytic Professor so well, that now I can't leave 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, but only in a paralytic sort of way.
The most buoyant exclamations leap up in my heart, but they come out of my mouth quite different. You should hear me say, 'Buck up, old cock!' It would bring tears to your eyes.""It does," said Syme; "but I cannot help thinking that apart from all that you are really a bit worried."The Professor started a little and looked at him steadily.
"You are a very clever fellow," he said, "it is a pleasure to work with you. Yes, I have rather a heavy cloud in my head. There is a great problem to face," and he sank his bald brow in his two hands.
Then he said in a low voice--"Can you play the piano?"
"Yes," said Syme in simple wonder, "I'm supposed to have a good touch."Then, as the other did not speak, he added--"I trust the great cloud is lifted."
After a long silence, the Professor said out of the cavernous shadow of his hands--"It would have done just as well if you could work a typewriter.""Thank you," said Syme, "you flatter me."
"Listen to me," said the other, "and remember whom we have to see tomorrow. You and I are going tomorrow to attempt something which is very much more dangerous than trying to steal the Crown Jewels out of the Tower. We are trying to steal a secret from a very sharp, very strong, and very wicked man. I believe there is no man, except 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 the little Doctor has a brutal sanity that is more shocking than the Secretary's disease. Don't you notice his detestable virility and vitality. He bounces like an india-rubber ball. Depend on it, Sunday was not asleep (I wonder if he ever sleeps?) when he locked up all the plans of this outrage in the round, black head of Dr. Bull.""And you think," said Syme, "that this unique monster will be soothed if I play the piano to him?""Don't be an ass," said his mentor. "I mentioned the piano because it gives one quick and independent fingers. Syme, if we are to go through this interview and come out sane or alive, we must have some code of signals between us that this brute will not see. Ihave made a rough alphabetical cypher corresponding to the five fingers--like this, see," and he rippled with his fingers on the wooden table--"B A D, bad, a word we may frequently require."Syme poured himself out another glass of wine, and began to study the scheme. He was abnormally quick with his brains at puzzles, and with his hands at conjuring, and it did not 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 inspiring him to a farcical ingenuity, and the Professor soon found himself struggling with the too vast energy of the new language, as it passed through the heated brain of Syme.
"We must have several word-signs," said Syme seriously--"words that we are likely to want, fine shades of meaning. My favourite word is 'coeval'. What's yours?""Do stop playing the goat," said the Professor plaintively. "You don't know how serious this is.""'Lush' too," said Syme, shaking his head sagaciously, "we must have 'lush'--word applied to grass, don't you know?""Do you imagine," asked the Professor furiously, "that we are going to talk to Dr. Bull about grass?""There are several ways in which the subject could be approached,"said Syme reflectively, "and the word introduced without appearing forced. We might say, 'Dr. Bull, as a revolutionist, you remember that a tyrant once advised us to eat grass; and indeed many of us, looking on the fresh lush grass of summer"'
"Do you understand," said the other, "that this is a tragedy?""Perfectly," replied Syme; "always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do? I wish this language of yours had a wider scope. I suppose we could not extend it from the fingers to the toes? That would involve pulling off our boots and socks during the conversation, which however unobtrusively performed--""Syme," said his friend with a stern simplicity, "go to bed!"Syme, however, sat up in bed for a considerable time mastering the new code. He was awakened next morning while the east was still sealed with darkness, and found his grey-bearded ally standing like a ghost beside his bed.
Syme sat up in bed blinking; then slowly collected his thoughts, threw off the bed-clothes, and stood up. It seemed to him in some curious 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 danger. He still felt an entire trust and loyalty towards his companion; but it was the trust between two men going to the scaffold.
"Well," said Syme with a forced cheerfulness as he pulled on his trousers, "I dreamt of that alphabet of yours. Did it take you long to make it up?"The Professor made no answer, but gazed in front of him with eyes the colour of a wintry sea; so Syme repeated his question.
"I say, did it take you long to invent all this? I'm considered good at these things, and it was a good hour's grind. Did you learn it all on the spot?"The Professor was silent; his eyes were wide open, and he wore a fixed but very small smile.
"How long did it take you?"
The Professor did not move.
