But hadn’t we better pinch this one?”
“We haven’t got no orders,” said Sid.
“No. And we haven’t failed to get that blasted wolf either, have we?”
“Wasn’t our fault. The old woman what said she’d sell wouldn’t sell, as you’re there to witness, young Len. We did our best. Told her that experiments at Belbury weren’t what she thought. Told her the brute would have the time of its life and be made no end of a pet. Never told so many lies in one morning in my life. She’d been got at by someone.”
“Course it wasn’t our fault. But the boss won’t take no notice of that. It’s get on or get out at Belbury.”
“Get out?” said Sid. “I wish to hell I knew how to.” Len spat over the side and there was a moment’s silence.
“Anyway,” said Sid presently, “what’s the good of taking a bear back?”
“Well, isn’t it better than coming back with nothing?” said Len. “And bears cost money. I know they want another one. And here it is free.”
“All right,” said Sid ironically, “if you’re so keen on it, just hop out and ask him to step in.”
“Dope,” said Len.
“Not on my bit of dinner, you don’t,” said Sid.
“You’re a bucking good mate to have,” said Len, groping in a greasy parcel. “It’s a good thing for you I’m not the sort of chap who’d split on you.”
“You done it already,” said the driver. “I know all your little games.”
Len had by this time produced a thick sandwich and was dabbing it with some strong-smelling liquid from a bottle. When it was thoroughly saturated, he opened the door and went a pace forward, still holding the door in one hand. He was now about six yards from the bear, which had remained perfectly still ever since it saw them. He threw the sandwich to it.
Quarter of an hour later Mr. Bultitude lay on his side, unconscious and breathing heavily. They had no difficulty in tying up his mouth and all four paws, but they had great difficulty in lifting him into the van.
“That’s done something to my ticker,” said Sid, pressing his hand to his left side.
“Curse your ticker,” said Len, rubbing the sweat out of his eyes. “Come on.”
Sid climbed back into the driving seat, sat still for a few seconds, panting and muttering “Christ” at intervals. Then he started his engine up and they drove away.
IV
For some time now Mark’s waking life was divided between periods by the Sleeper’s bedside and periods in the room with the spotted ceiling. The training in objectivity which took place in the latter cannot be described fully. The reversal of natural inclination which Frost inculcated was not spectacular or dramatic, but the details would be unprintable and had, indeed, a kind of nursery fatuity about them which is best ignored. Often Mark felt that one good roar of coarse laughter would have blown away the whole atmosphere of the thing: but laughter was unhappily out of the question. There indeed lay the horror-to perform petty obscenities which a very silly child might have thought funny all under the unchangingly serious inspection of Frost, with a stop watch and a note- book and all the ritual of scientific experiment. Some of the things he had to do were merely meaningless. In one exercise he had to mount the step-ladder and touch some one spot on the ceiling, selected by Frost: just touch it with his forefinger and then come down again. But either by association with the other exercises or because it really concealed some significance, this proceeding always appeared to Mark to be the most indecent and even inhuman of all his tasks. And day by day, as the process went on, that idea of the Straight or the Normal which had occurred to him during his first visit to this room, grew stronger and more solid in his mind till it became a kind of mountain. He had never before known what an Idea meant: he had always thought till now that they were things inside one’s own head. But now, when his head was continually attacked and often completely filled with the clinging corruption of the training, this Idea towered up above him-something which obviously existed quite independently of himself and had hard rock surfaces which would not give, surfaces he could cling to.
The other thing that helped to save him was the Man in the Bed. Mark’s discovery that he really could speak English had led to a curious acquaintance with him. It can hardly be said that they conversed. Both spoke, but the result was hardly conversation as Mark had hitherto understood the term. The man was so very allusive and used gesture so extensively that Mark’s less sophisticated modes of communication were almost useless. Thus when Mark explained that he had no tobacco, the man had slapped an imaginary tobacco pouch on his knee at least six times and struck an imaginary match about as often, each time jerking his head sideways with a look of such relish as Mark had seldom seen on a human face. Then Mark went on to explain that though “they” were not foreigners, they were extremely dangerous people and that probably the Stranger’s best plan would be to preserve his silence.
“Ah,” said the Stranger jerking his head again. “Ah. Eh?” And then, without exactly laying his finger on his lips he went through an elaborate pantomime which clearly meant the same thing. And it was impossible for a long time to get him off this subject. He went back and back to the theme of secrecy. “Ah,” he said, “don’t get nothing out of me. I tell ’ee. Don’t get nothing out of me. Eh? I tell ’ee. You and me knows. Ah?” and his look embraced Mark in such an apparently gleeful conspiracy that it warmed the heart. Believing this matter to be now sufficiently clear Mark began, “But, as regards the future-” only to be met by another pantomime of secrecy, followed by the word “Eh?” in a tone which demanded an answer.
“Yes, of course,” said Mark. “We are both in considerable danger. And-“
“Ah,” said the man. “Foreigners. Eh?”
“No, no,” said Mark. “I told you they weren’t. They seem to think you are, though. And that’s why-”
“That’s right,” interrupted the man. “I know. Foreigners, I call them. I know. They get nothing out of me. You and me’s all right. Ah.”
“I’ve been trying to think out some sort of plan “said Mark.
“Ah,” said the man approvingly.
“And I was wondering,” began Mark when the man suddenly leaned forwards and said with extraordinary energy “I tell ’ee.”
“What?” said Mark.
“I got a plan.”
“What is it?”
“Ah,” said the man winking at Mark with infinite knowingness and rubbing his belly.
“Go on. What is it?” said Mark.
“How’d it be,” said the man, sitting up and applying his left thumb to his right forefinger as if about to propound the first step in a philosophical argument, “How’d it be now if you and I made ourselves a nice bit of toasted cheese?”
“I meant a plan for escape,” said Mark.
“Ah,” replied the man. “My old Dad, now. He never had a day’s illness in his life. Eh? How’s that for a bit of all right? Eh?”
“It’s a remarkable record,” said Mark.
“Ah. You may say so,” replied the other. “On the road all his life. Never had a stomach-ache. Eh?” and here, as if Mark might not know that malady, he went through a long and extraordinarily vivid dumb show.
“Open-air life suited him, I suppose,” said Mark.
“And what did he attribute his health to?” asked the man. He pronounced the word attribute with great relish, laying the accent on the first syllable. “I ask everyone, what did he attribute his health to?”
Mark was about to reply when the man indicated by a gesture that the question was purely rhetorical and that he did not wish to be interrupted.
“He attributed his health,” continued the speaker with great solemnity, “to eating toasted cheese. Keeps the water out of the stomach, that’s what it does, eh? Makes a lining. Stands to reason. Ah!”
In several later interviews Mark endeavoured to discover something of the Stranger’s own history and particularly how he had been brought to Belbury. This was not easy to do, for though the tramp’s conversation was
