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Part I: The Enigmas of Innocent Smith | Gilbert K. Chesterton | |
Chapter V. The Allegorical Practical Joker |
Page 11 of 14 |
"Well, Innocent must have his bag, you know," said Mary with a smile. "I dare say the cabman would get it down for us." "I'll get the bag," said Smith, speaking for the first time in hours; his voice sounded remote and rude, like the voice of a statue. Those who had so long danced and disputed round his immobility were left breathless by his precipitance. With a run and spring he was out of the garden into the street; with a spring and one quivering kick he was actually on the roof of the cab. The cabman happened to be standing by the horse's head, having just removed its emptied nose-bag. Smith seemed for an instant to be rolling about on the cab's back in the embraces of his Gladstone bag. The next instant, however, he had rolled, as if by a royal luck, into the high seat behind, and with a shriek of piercing and appalling suddenness had sent the horse flying and scampering down the street. His evanescence was so violent and swift, that this time it was all the other people who were turned into garden statues. Mr. Moses Gould, however, being ill-adapted both physically and morally for the purposes of permanent sculpture, came to life some time before the rest, and, turning to Moon, remarked, like a man starting chattily with a stranger on an omnibus, "Tile loose, eh? Cab loose anyhow." There followed a fatal silence; and then Dr. Warner said, with a sneer like a club of stone,-- "This is what comes of the Court of Beacon, Mr. Moon. You have let loose a maniac on the whole metropolis." |
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Manalive Gilbert K. Chesterton |
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