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the cheery crowds of schoolchildren and natural-history enthusiasts depleted
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to a few poor sullen wretches clearly come in for the sake of cleaner air and
some escape from the heat. They slouched and loitered under the towering
skeleton of the Leviathan as if they longed to crack its mighty bones and suck
the marrow.
There was nothing for it but to tramp back to the Palace of Paleontology and
prepare for the night's dinner with the Young Men's Agnostic Association. The
Y.M.A.A. were a savantry student-
group. Mallory, as lion of the evening, would be expected to make a few
after-dinner remarks. He'd been quite looking forward to the event, as the
Y.M.A.A. were a jolly lot, not at all as pompous as their respectable name
might suggest, and the all-male company would allow him to make a few
unbuttoned jests suitable for young bachelors. Mallory had heard several such,
from "Dizzy"
Disraeli, that he thought very good indeed. But now he wondered how many of
his erstwhile hosts were left in London, or how the young men might manage to
gather together, if they were still so inclined, and worst yet, what the
dining might be like in the upstairs room of the Black Friar pub, which was
near Blackfriars Bridge and just upwind of the Thames.
The streets were visibly emptying. Shop after shop bore CLOSED signs. Mallory
had hoped to find a barber to trim his hair and beard, but he'd had no such
luck. London's citizenry had fled, or gone to earth behind tight-closed
windows. Smoke had settled to ground-level and mixed with a foetid fog, a
yellow pea-soup of it everywhere, and it was difficult to see the length of a
half-
block. The rare pedestrians emerged from obscurity like well-dressed ghosts.
Fraser led the way, uncomplaining and unerring, and Mallory supposed that the
veteran copper could have led them through the London streets blindfolded,
with near as much ease. They wore their kerchiefs over their faces now. It
seemed a sensible precaution, though it rather bothered Mallory that Fraser
now seemed gagged as well as reticent.
"The kinotropes are the sticking-point," Mallory opined, as they tramped up
the Brompton Road, the spires of its scientific palaces obscured by foetor.
"It wasn't like this before I left
England. Two years ago the damned things were nowhere near so common. Now I'm
not allowed to give a public speech without one." He coughed. "It gave me a
turn to see that long panel back in Fleet
Street, mounted in front of the Evening Telegraph, clacking away like sixty,
over the heads of the crowd! 'Trains Closed As Sand-Hogs Strike,' the thing
said, 'Parliament Decries State of Thames.'
"
"What's wrong with that?" Fraser asked.
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"It doesn't say anything," Mallory said. "Who in Parliament? What state of the
Thames, specifically? What did Parliament say about it? Wise things or foolish
things?"
Fraser grunted.
"There is a wicked pretense that one has been informed. But no such thing has
truly occurred!
A mere slogan, an empty litany. No arguments are heard, no evidence is
weighed. It isn't news at all, only a source of amusement for idlers."
"Some might say it's better for idlers to know a bit than nothing at all."
"Some might be damned fools, then, Fraser. This kino-sloganry is like printing
bank-notes with no gold to back them, or writing checks on an empty account.
If that is to be the level of rational discourse for the common folk, then I
must say three cheers for the authority of the
House of Lords."
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A fire-gurney chugged slowly past them, with weary firemen on its
running-boards, their clothing and faces blackened at their work, or perhaps
by the London air itself, or perhaps by the streaming stinking soot of the
gurney's own smokestacks. To Mallory, it seemed a strangely ironic thing that
a fire-gurney should propel itself through the agency of a heap of blazing
coal. But perhaps there was sense in it after all, for in weather like this a
team of horses would be hard put to gallop a block.
Mallory was anxious to soothe his raw throat with a huckle-buff, but it seemed
smokier inside the Palace of Paleontology than out. There was a harsh stench,
like burnt linen.
Perhaps Kelly's imperial gallons of manganate of soda had eaten through the
pipes. In any case, this Stink seemed to have finally defeated the Palace
guests, for there was scarcely a soul in the lobby, and not a murmur from the
dining-room.
Mallory was looking for service in the saloon, amid the lacquered screens and
red silk upholstery, when Kelly himself appeared, his face taut and resolute.
"Dr. Mallory?"
"Yes, Kelly?"
"I've bad news for you, sir. An unhappy event here. A fire, sir." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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