"Г.К.Честертон. The Club of Queer Trades " - читать интересную книгу автора

"Quite," answered the vicar, and I was certainly puzzled to
find him returning so much to the timidity, not to say the
demoralization, of his tone when he first entered my presence.

Basil sprang smartly to his feet.

"Then our course is clear," he said. "You have not even begun your
investigation, my dear Mr Shorter; the first thing for us to do is
to go together to see Captain Fraser."

"When?" asked the clergyman, stammering.

"Now," said Basil, putting one arm in his fur coat.

The old clergyman rose to his feet, quaking all over.

"I really do not think that it is necessary," he said.

Basil took his arm out of the fur coat, threw it over the chair
again, and put his hands in his pockets.

"Oh," he said, with emphasis. "Oh--you don't think it necessary;
then," and he added the words with great clearness and
deliberation, "then, Mr Ellis Shorter, I can only say that I would
like to see you without your whiskers."

And at these words I also rose to my feet, for the great tragedy
of my life had come. Splendid and exciting as life was in
continual contact with an intellect like Basil's, I had always the
feeling that that splendour and excitement were on the borderland
of sanity. He lived perpetually near the vision of the reason of
things which makes men lose their reason. And I felt of his
insanity as men feel of the death of friends with heart disease.
It might come anywhere, in a field, in a hansom cab, looking at a
sunset, smoking a cigarette. It had come now. At the very moment
of delivering a judgement for the salvation of a fellow creature,
Basil Grant had gone mad.

"Your whiskers," he cried, advancing with blazing eyes. "Give me
your whiskers. And your bald head."

The old vicar naturally retreated a step or two. I stepped
between.

"Sit down, Basil," I implored, "you're a little excited. Finish
your wine."

"Whiskers," he answered sternly, "whiskers."