g on the stones below like a
great ball of india-rubber, and went bounding off towards the corner of
the Alhambra, where he hailed a hansom-cab and sprang inside it. The six
detectives had been standing thunderstruck and livid in the light of his
last assertion; but when he disappeared into the cab, Syme's practical
senses returned to him, and leaping over the balcony so recklessly as
almost to break his legs, he called another cab.

He and Bull sprang into the cab together, the Professor and the
Inspector into another, while the Secretary and the late Gogol scrambled
into a third just in time to pursue the flying Syme, who was pursuing
the flying President. Sunday led them a wild chase towards the
north-west, his cabman, evidently under the influence of more than
common inducements, urging the horse at breakneck speed. But Syme was in
no mood for delicacies, and he stood up in his own cab shouting, "Stop
thief!" until crowds ran along beside his cab, and policemen began to
stop and ask questions. All this had its influence upon the President's
cabman, who began to look dubious, and to slow down to a trot. He opened
the trap to talk reasonably to his fare, and in so doing let the long
whip droop over the front of the cab. Sunday leant forward, seized it,
and jerked it violently out of the man's hand. Then standing up in front
of the cab himself, he lashed the horse and roared aloud, so that they
went down the streets like a flying storm. Through street after street
and square after square went whirling this preposterous vehicle, in
which the fare was urging the horse and the driver trying desperately
to stop it. The other three cabs came after it (if the phrase be
permissible of a cab) like panting hounds. Shops and streets shot by
like rattling arrows.

At the highest ecstacy of speed, Sunday turned round on the splashboard
where he stood, and sticking his great grinning head out of the cab,
with white hair whistling in the wind, he made a horrible face at
his pursuers, like some colossal urchin. Then raising his right hand
swiftly, he flung a ball of paper in Syme's face and vanished. Syme
caught the thing while instinctively warding it off, and discovered that
it consisted of two crumpled papers. One was addressed to himself, and
the other to Dr. Bull, with a very long, and it is to be feared partly
ironical, string of letters after his name. Dr. Bull's address was,
at any rate, considerably longer than his communic