"Pray resume your remarks, Colonel.

You were talking, I think, about the plain people of a peaceable French town." The staring Colonel was long past minding satire.

He rolled his eyes all round the street.
"It is extraordinary," he said, "most extraordinary." "A fastidious person," said Syme, "might even call it unpleasant.
However, I suppose those lights out in the field beyond this street are the Gendarmerie.

We shall soon get there." "No," said Inspector Ratcliffe, "we shall never get there." He had been standing up and looking keenly ahead of him.

Now he sat down and smoothed his sleek hair with a weary gesture.
"What do you mean ?" asked Bull sharply.
"I mean that we shall never get there," said the pessimist placidly.
"They have two rows of armed men across the road already; I can see them from here.