"Arthur Conan Doyle - The Land of Mist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

was upon the third floor, and the mist lay thick upon the windows, while the low hum of the attenuated
Sunday traffic rose up from an invisible highway beneath, which was outlined only by scattered patches
of dull radiance. Professor Challenger sat with his thick, bandy legs outstretched to the fire, and his hands
thrust deeply into trouser pockets. His dress had a little of the eccentricity of genius, for he wore a loose-
collared shirt, a large knotted maroon-coloured silk tie, and a black velvet smoking-jacket, which, with
his flowing beard, gave him the appearance of an elderly and Bohemian artist. On one side of him ready
for an excursion, with bowl hat, short-skirted dress of black, and all the other fashionable devices with
which women contrive to deform the beauties of nature, there sat his daughter, while Malone, hat in hand,
waited by the window.

"I think we should get off, Enid. It is nearly seven," said he.

They were writing joint articles upon the religious denominations of London, and on each Sunday
evening they sallied out together to sample some new one and get copy for the next week's issue of the
Gazette.

"It's not till eight, Ted. We have lots of time."

"Sit down, sir! Sit down!" boomed Challenger, tugging at his beard as was his habit if his temper was
rising. "there is nothing annoys me more than having anyone standing behind me. A relic of atavism and
the fear of a dagger, but still persistent. That's right. For heaven's sake put your hat down! You have a
perpetual air of catching a train."

"That's the journalistic life," said Malone. "If we don't catch the perpetual train we get left. Even Enid is
beginning to understand that. But still, as you say, there is time enough."

"How far have you got?" asked Challenger.

Enid consulted a business-like little reporter's notebook. "We have done seven. There was Westminster
Abbey for the Church in its most picturesque form, and Saint Agatha for the High Church, and Tudor
Place for the Low. Then there was the Westminster Cathedral for Catholics, Endell Street for
Presbyterians, and Gloucester Square for Unitarians. But to-night we are trying to introduce some variety.
We are doing the Spiritualists."


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 The Land of Mist


Challenger snorted like an angry buffalo.

"Next week the lunatic asylums, I presume," said he. "You don't mean to tell me, Malone, that these ghost
people have got churches of their own."

"I've been looking into that," said Malone. "I always look up cold facts and figures before I tackle a job.
They have over four hundred registered churches in Great Britain."

Challenger's snorts now sounded like a whole herd of buffaloes.

"There seems to me to be absolutely no limit to the inanity and credulity of the human race. Homo