Syme, beaming. "When
the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs--"

"Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a
ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three
things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own
epigrams may appear somewhat more forced."

Syme struck the table with a radiant face.

"Why, how true that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you
have an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name."

"Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor.

"It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some
other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself
and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be
predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such
recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one
party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I
will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in
the slight sea breeze.

A band was playing in a cafe chantant hidden somewhere among the trees,
and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the bray of
the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in
Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He
looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man had two
companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk hats, one of
them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, evidently people of
a solid social position. Besides these black, cylindrical costumes,
the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light spring clothes, looked
Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might
say that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his scornful
eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple sea. But he was no
Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, some swarthy despot, half
Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when slavery seemed natural looked
down on the Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just
so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant have shown
against the dark green olives and the burning blue.

"Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly,
seeing that Syme still stood up without moving.

Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine.

"I am," he