I couldn't have
held out another minute."
I, too, was thankful. If I had missed the boat I should have had to wait
till the next day and crossed in the embarrassing and unrestful company
of Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos. It is not that I dislike the
little man, or have the Briton's nervous shrinking from being seen
in eccentric society; but I wish to eliminate mediaevalism as far as
possible from my quest. In conjunction with this crazy-headed little
trainer of cats it would become too preposterous even for my light
sardonic humour. I resolved to dismiss him from my mind altogether.
Yet, in spite of my determination, and in spite of one of Monsieur
Lenotre's fascinating monographs on the French Revolution, on which
I had counted to beguile the tedium of the journey, I could not get
Anastasius Papadopoulos out of my head. He stayed with me the whole of
a storm-tossed night, and all the next morning. He has haunted my
brain ever since. I see him tossing his arms about in fury, while the
broken-nosed Saupiquet makes his monotonous claim for the payment
of sevenpence halfpenny; I hear him speak in broken whispers of the
disastrous quadruped on whose skin and hoofs Saupiquet got drunk.
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