Page 111 - the-thirty-nine-steps

villas and terraces and then slums and mean streets, and it
took me pretty nearly two hours. All the while my restless-
ness was growing worse. I felt that great things, tremendous
things, were happening or about to happen, and I, who was
the cog-wheel of the whole business, was out of it. Royer
would be landing at Dover, Sir Walter would be making
plans with the few people in England who were in the secret,
and somewhere in the darkness the Black Stone would be
working. I felt the sense of danger and impending calamity,
and I had the curious feeling, too, that I alone could avert it,
alone could grapple with it. But I was out of the game now.
How could it be otherwise? It was not likely that Cabinet
Ministers and Admiralty Lords and Generals would admit
me to their councils.
I actually began to wish that I could run up against one
of my three enemies. That would lead to developments. I felt
that I wanted enormously to have a vulgar scrap with those
gentry, where I could hit out and flatten something. I was
rapidly getting into a very bad temper.
I didn’t feel like going back to my flat. That had to be
faced some time, but as I still had sufficient money I thought
I would put it off till next morning, and go to a hotel for the
night.
My irritation lasted through dinner, which I had at a
restaurant in Jermyn Street. I was no longer hungry, and
let several courses pass untasted. I drank the best part of
a bottle of Burgundy, but it did nothing to cheer me. An
abominable restlessness had taken possession of me. Here
was I, a very ordinary fellow, with no particular brains, and

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