“Confound it!” he angrily cried, as he flung himself into an easy-chair, after a day of sight-seeing from the top of an omnibus. “I am getting decidedly sick of this business.”
“Eh?” said Professor Scotch, looking up from his journal, in which he had been writing. “What did you say?”
“I say I am getting sick and tired of this business.”
“To what do you refer, my boy?”
“This being dogged about like a criminal by the police. I have been watched and tracked ever since the discovery of that infernal machine, just as if I did not tell all I knew about it at the time. I have been summoned to Scotland Yard, where I was questioned and cross-questioned, as if I were a witness on the stand. It seems as if I have been compelled to give the addresses of almost all the respectable persons I know. To-day, when I left the house, I suspected that I would be followed, and I resolved to give the fellow who followed me a merry chase. I took a ’bus to Westminster Bridge, where I left it and tramped back to Charing Cross. There I took another ’bus to Paddington, where I left it and took another through Oxford Street and Holborn. Then I took another line and went northward to the Queen’s Elm, returning by Holloway Road, City Road, Caledonian Road, Euston Road, Portland Road, Regent Street and Piccadilly. And, say—what do you think?”
“Eh? What do I think?”
“Yes. I presume you think sometimes.”
“Sir, sir! It has been demonstrated that even apes think.”
“In that case there can be no further doubt but you sometimes think. I beg your pardon.”
“What’s that?” spluttered the little man, leaping to his feet. “Do you mean to compare me to an ape? You insolent young scoundrel! You saucy young rascal! It is more than I can endure!”