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Syme's walking-stick had fallen from his hand with a great clang,
which confessed the concealed steel. But the Professor did not look
round. Syme, who was commonly a cool character, was literally
gaping as a rustic gapes at a conjuring trick. He had seen no cab
following; he had heard no wheels outside the shop; to all mortal
appearances the man had come on foot. But the old man could only
walk like a snail, and Syme had walked like the wind. He started up
and snatched his stick, half crazy with the contradiction in mere
arithmetic, and swung out of the swinging doors, leaving his coffee
untasted. An omnibus going to the Bank went rattling by with an
unusual rapidity. He had a violent run of a hundred yards to reach
it; but he managed to spring, swaying upon the splash-board and,
pausing for an instant to pant, he climbed on to the top. When he
had been seated for about half a minute, he heard behind him a sort
of heavy and asthmatic breathing.
Turning sharply, he saw rising gradually higher and higher up
the omnibus steps a top hat soiled and dripping with snow, and
under the shadow of its brim the short-sighted face and shaky
shoulders of Professor de Worms. He let himself into a seat with
characteristic care, and wrapped himself up to the chin in the
mackintosh rug.
Every movement of the old man's tottering figure and vague hands,
every uncertain gesture and panic-stricken pause, seemed to put
it beyond question that he was helpless, that he was in the last
imbecility of the body. He moved by inches, he let himself down
with little gasps of caution. And yet, unless the philosophical
entities called time and space have no vestige even of a practical
existence, it appeared quite unquestionable that he had run after
the omnibus.
Syme sprang erect upon the rocking car, and after staring wildly
at the wintry sky, that grew gloomier every moment, he ran down
the steps. He had repressed an elemental impulse to leap over the
side.
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