"G.K.Chesterton. The man who was Thursday. A nightmare (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

yourselves in a dark box!"
The President seemed to take the foreigner's incoherent satire with
entire good humour.
"You can't get hold of it yet, Gogol," he said in a fatherly way. "When
once they have heard us talking nonsense on that balcony they will not care
where we go afterwards. If we had come here first, we should have had the
whole staff at the keyhole. You don't seem to know anything about mankind."
"I die for zem," cried the Pole in thick excitement, "and I slay zare
oppressors. I care not for these games of gonzealment. I would zmite ze
tyrant in ze open square."
"I see, I see," said the President, nodding kindly as he seated himself
at the top of a long table. "You die for mankind first, and then you get up
and smite their oppressors. So that's all right. And now may I ask you to
control your beautiful sentiments, and sit down with the other gentlemen at
this table. For the first time this morning something intelligent is going
to be said."
Syme, with the perturbed promptitude he had shown since the original
summons, sat down first. Gogol sat down last, grumbling in his brown beard
about gombromise. No one except Syme seemed to have any notion of the blow
that was about to fall. As for him, he had merely the feeling of a man
mounting the scaffold with the intention, at any rate, of making a good
speech.
"Comrades," said the President, suddenly rising, "we have spun out this
farce long enough. I have called you down here to tell you something so
simple and shocking that even the waiters upstairs (long inured to our
levities) might hear some new seriousness in my voice. Comrades, we were
discussing plans and naming places. I propose, before saying anything else,
that those plans and places should not be voted by this meeting, but should
be left wholly in the control of some one reliable member. I suggest Comrade
Saturday, Dr. Bull."
They all stared at him; then they all started in their seats, for the
next words, though not loud, had a living and sensational emphasis. Sunday
struck the table.
"Not one word more about the plans and places must be said at this
meeting. Not one tiny detail more about what we mean to do must be mentioned
in this company."
Sunday had spent his life in astonishing his followers; but it seemed
as if he had never really astonished them until now. They all moved
feverishly in their seats, except Syme. He sat stiff in his, with his hand
in his pocket, and on the handle of his loaded revolver. When the attack on
him came he would sell his life dear. He would find out at least if the
President was mortal.
Sunday went on smoothly--
"You will probably understand that there is only one possible motive
for forbidding free speech at this festival of freedom. Strangers
overhearing us matters nothing. They assume that we are joking. But what
would matter, even unto death, is this, that there should be one actually
among us who is not of us, who knows our grave purpose, but does not share
it, who--"
The Secretary screamed out suddenly like a woman.