gony.

"Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull,
I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card
upon the table.

The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He
pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then
the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning
they heard his voice.

"I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of
schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes,
I'm in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them
lightly as a matter of form.

Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the
Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively
followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the
doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it
rang.

"But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were
more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned
Council!"

"We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three."

The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from
below.

"No," said the voice, "we were not four against three--we were not so
lucky. We were four against One."

The others went down the stairs in silence.

The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of
him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his
own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly
on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over
his shoulder.

"It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with
the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and
embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise
me for having been in a blue funk."

"All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue
funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles."

The young man laughed delightedly.

"Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea--not my own. I haven't
got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service,
especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted
someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that
I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very w