‘And now—now for the more immediate future! Where are you going to hide? How would it be if you caught the Paris express from Charing Cross? Almost an hour to spare. Don’t go on to Paris. Stop at Calais. Live in Calais. He’d never think of looking for you in Calais.’
‘It’s like my luck,’ he said, ‘to spend my last hours on earth with an ass.’ But I was not offended. ‘And a treacherous ass,’ he strangely added, tossing across to me a crumpled bit of paper which he had been holding in his hand. I glanced at the writing on it—some sort of gibberish, apparently. I laid it impatiently aside.
‘Come, Soames! pull yourself together! This isn’t a mere matter of life and death. It’s a question of eternal torment, mind you! You don’t mean to say you’re going to wait limply here till the Devil comes to fetch you?’
‘I can’t do anything else. I’ve no choice.’
‘Come! This is “trusting and encouraging” with a vengeance! This is Diabolism run mad!’ I filled his glass with wine. ‘Surely, now that you’ve SEEN the brute—’
‘It’s no good abusing him.’
‘You must admit there’s nothing Miltonic about him, Soames.’
‘I don’t say he’s not rather different from what I expected.’
‘He’s a vulgarian, he’s a swell-mobsman, he’s the sort of man who hangs about the corridors of trains going to the Riviera and steals ladies’ jewel-cases. Imagine eternal torment presided over by HIM!’
‘You don’t suppose I look forward to it, do you?’