But he felt that he would have laughed as loudly if a pepperpot had fallen over.
The false Professor drank and wiped his false beard.
"Did you know," he asked, "that that man Gogol was one of us ?" "I?
No, I didn't know it," answered Syme in some surprise.

"But didn't you ?" "I knew no more than the dead," replied the man who called himself de Worms.

"I thought the President was talking about me, and I rattled in my boots." "And I thought he was talking about me," said Syme, with his rather reckless laughter.

"I had my hand on my revolver all the time." "So had I," said the Professor grimly; "so had Gogol evidently." Syme struck the table with an exclamation.
"Why, there were three of us there!" he cried.

"Three out of seven is a fighting number.