certainly
pursued him. If the man had one character as a paralytic and another
character as a pursuer, the antithesis might make him more interesting,
but scarcely more soothing. It would be a very small comfort that
he could not find the Professor out, if by some serious accident the
Professor should find him out. He emptied a whole pewter pot of ale
before the professor had touched his milk.

One possibility, however, kept him hopeful and yet helpless. It was just
possible that this escapade signified something other than even a slight
suspicion of him. Perhaps it was some regular form or sign. Perhaps the
foolish scamper was some sort of friendly signal that he ought to have
understood. Perhaps it was a ritual. Perhaps the new Thursday was always
chased along Cheapside, as the new Lord Mayor is always escorted along
it. He was just selecting a tentative inquiry, when the old Professor
opposite suddenly and simply cut him short. Before Syme could ask the
first diplomatic question, the old anarchist had asked suddenly, without
any sort of preparation--

"Are you a policeman?"

Whatever else Syme had expected, he had never expected anything so
brutal and actual as this. Even his great presence of mind could only
manage a reply with an air of rather blundering jocularity.

"A policeman?" he said, laughing vaguely. "Whatever made you think of a
policeman in connection with me?"

"The process was simple enough," answered the Professor patiently. "I
thought you looked like a policeman. I think so now."

"Did I take a policeman's hat by mistake out of the restaurant?" asked
Syme, smiling wildly. "Have I by any chance got a number stuck on to
me somewhere? Have my boots got that watchful look? Why must I be a
policeman? Do, do let me be a postman."

The old Professor shook his head with a gravity that gave no hope, but
Syme ran on with a feverish irony.

"But perhaps I misunderstood the delicacies of your German philosophy.
Perhaps policeman is a relative term. In an evolutionary sense, sir,
the ape fades so gradually into the policeman, that I myself can never
detect the shade. The monkey is only the policeman that may be. Perhaps
a maiden lady on Clapham Common is only the policeman that might have
been. I don't mind being the policeman that might have been. I don't
mind being anything in German thought."

"Are you in the police service?" said the old man, ignoring all Syme's
improvised and desperate raillery. "A