And in that, you know, you are rather like somebody else.
And, now I think of it, perhaps you are somebody else."
There was a silence broken by breathing from the corner and the
murmur of the rising storm, that came in through the small grating
above the man's head. Horne Fisher continued:
"Are you only a servant, perhaps, that rather sinister old servant
who was butler to Hawker and Verner? If so, you are certainly the
only link between the two periods. But if so, why do you degrade
yourself to serve this dirty foreigner, when you at least saw the
last of a genuine national gentry? People like you are generally at
least patriotic. Doesn't England mean anything to you, Mr. Usher?
All of which eloquence is possibly wasted, as perhaps you are not
Mr. Usher.
"More likely you are Verner himself; and it's no good wasting
eloquence to make you ashamed of yourself. Nor is it any good to
curse you for corrupting England; nor are you the right person to
curse. It is the English who deserve to be cursed, and are cursed,
because they allowed such vermin to crawl into the high places of
their heroes and their kings. I won't dwell on the idea that you're
Verner, or the throttling might begin, after all. Is there anyone
else you could be? Surely you're not some servant of the other rival
organization.
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