Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“ The passer-by is only looking for his own melancholy destination of the Montenegro Shipping Agency or the London office of the Rutland Sentinel, and passes through the twilight passages as one passes through the twilight corridors of a dream. If the thugs set up a Strangers' Assassination Company in one of the great buildings in Norfolk Street, and sent in a mild man in spectacles to answer inquiries, no inquiries would be made. And the Club of Queer Trades reigns in a great edifice hidden like a fossil in a mighty cliff of fossils. ”

“ Major Brown was a V.C., and an able and distinguished soldier, but he was anything but a warlike person. Like many among the iron men who recovered British India, he was a man with the natural belief and tastes of an old maid. In his dress he was dapper and yet demure; in his habits he was precise to the point of the exact adjustment of a teacup. One enthusiasm he had, which was of the nature of a religion—the cultivation of pansies. ”

“ The legs crashed against the desk, so that Northover only got a blow on the elbow as he sprang up with clinched fists, only to be seized by the united rush of the rest of us. The chair had fallen clattering on the empty floor.
"Let me go, you scamps," he shouted, "Let me—"
"Stand still," cried Rupert, authoritatively. "Major Brown's action is excusable. The abominable crime you have attempted—"
"A customer has a perfect right," said Northover, hotly, "to question an alleged overcharge, but, confound it all, not to throw furniture." ”

“ She was an actress, employed (with many others) by the Romance Agency; and her marriage with the prim old veteran caused some stir in her languid and intellectualized set. She always replied very quietly that she had met scores of men who acted splendidly in the charades provided for them by Northover, but that she had only met one man who went down into a coal-cellar when he really thought it contained a murderer.
The major and she are living as happily as birds, in an absurd villa, and the former has taken to smoking. ”

“ Rupert laughed stoutly. "Giving orders to a subordinate to strangle a harmless stranger in a coal-cellar may strike you as a very blameless experiment, but—"
"Do you think they wanted to strangle the major?" asked Basil, in the same distant and monotonous voice. ”

“ Major Brown received the explanation with complete simplicity and good-humor.
"Of course; awfully dense, sir," he said. "No doubt at all, the scheme excellent. But I don't think—" He paused a moment and looked dreamily out of the window. "I don't think you will find me in it. Somehow, when one's seen—seen the thing itself, you know—blood and men screaming, one feels about having a little house and a little hobby; in the Bible, you know, 'There remaineth a rest.'"
Northover bowed. ”

“ Gurney-Brown were the same person. Thus you were suddenly hurled into the middle of another man's story."
"How on earth does the thing work?" asked Rupert Grant, with bright and fascinated eyes.
"We believe that we are doing a noble work," said Northover, warmly. "It has continually struck us that there is no element in modern life that is more lamentable than the fact that the modern man has to seek all artistic existence in a sedentary state. If he wishes to float into fairyland, he reads a book; if he wishes to dash into the thick of battle, he reads a book ”

“ It's only the life of the tree that has unity and goes up—only the green blood that springs, like a fountain, at the stars."
"But what the deuce else can the letter be but criminal?"
"We have eternity to stretch our legs in," replied the mystic. "It can be an infinity of things. ”

“ Northover, with a sigh. "The Adventure and Romance Agency has been started to meet a great modern desire. On every side, in conversation and in literature, we hear of the desire for a larger theatre of events—for something to waylay us and lead us splendidly astray. Now the man who feels this desire for a varied fe pays a yearly or a quarterly sum to the Adventure and Romance Agency in return, the Adventure and Romance Agency undertakes to surround him with startling and weird events. As a man is leaving his front door, an excited sweep approaches him and assures him of a plot against his life ”

“ It made a man feel what he should feel, that he was still in the childhood of the world. That I should have come at last upon so singular a body was, I may say without vanity, not altogether singular, for I have a mania for belonging to as many societies as possible. ”

“ We give him these visions, but we give him exercise at the same time, the necessity of leaping from wall to wall, of fighting strange gentlemen, of running down long streets from pursuers—all healthy and pleasant exercises. ”

“ Rupert paused at the corner of Tanner's Court, with a quiver of delight at danger, and gripped Basil's revolver in his great-coat pocket.
"Shall we go in now?" he asked.
"Not get police?" asked Major Brown, glancing sharply up and down the street.
"I am not sure," answered Rupert, knitting his brows. Of course, it's quite clear, the thing's all crooked. But there are three of us, and—"
"I shouldn't get the police," said Basil, in a queer voice. Rupert glanced at him and stared hard.
"Basil," he cried, "you're trembling. "What's the matter—are you afraid?" ”

“ Coal-cellar. P. G. Northover," said the major, with righteous indignation.
We glanced at each other with inquisitiveness. Basil, who had his eyes shut in his abstracted way, said, simply:
"I beg your pardon."
"Fact is. Street, you know, man, pansies. On wall. Death to me. Something. Preposterous."
We shook our heads gently. Bit by bit, and mainly by the seemingly sleepy assistance of Basil Grant, we pieced together the major's fragmentary but excited narration. It would be infamous to submit the reader to what we endured; therefore I will tell the story of Major Brown in my own words. ”

“ It is an eccentric and Bohemian club, of which the absolute condition of membership lies in this, that the candidate must have invented the method by which he earns his living. It must be an entirely new trade. ”