Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/77

Fall of a Great Reputation the curved Eastern face walked along for some time, his long, splendid frock-coat flying behind him. Then he swung sharply out of the great, glaring road and disappeared down an ill-lit alley. We swung silently after him.

"This is an odd turning for a man of that kind to take," I said.

"A man of what kind?" asked my friend.

"Well," I said, "a man with that kind of expression and those boots. I thought it rather odd, to tell the truth, that he should be in this part of the world at all."

"Ah, yes," said Basil, and said no more.

We tramped on, looking steadily in front of us. The elegant figure, like the figure of a black swan, was silhouetted suddenly against the glare of intermittent gaslight and then swallowed again in night. The intervals between the lights were long, and a fog was thickening on the whole city. Our pace, therefore, had become swift and mechanical between the lamp-posts; but Basil came to a stand-still suddenly like a reined horse; I stopped also. We had almost run into the 63