I wish the friends were younger, chuckled Dr. Lanyon. But I suppose
we are. And what of that? I see little of him now.
Indeed? said Utterson. I thought you had a bond of common interest.
We had, was the reply. But it is more than ten years since Henry
Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind;
and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old
sake s sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the
man. Such unscientific balderdash, added the doctor, flushing suddenly
purple, would have estranged Damon and Pythias.
This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to Mr. Utterson.
They have only differed on some point of science, he thought; and
being a man of no scientific passions (except in the matter of
conveyancing), he even added: It is nothing worse than that! He gave
his friend a few seconds to recover his composure, and then approached
the question he had come to put. Did you ever come across a _protege_
of his one Hyde? he asked.
Hyde? repeated Lanyon. No. Never heard of him. Since my time.
That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried back with
him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and fro, until the
small hours of the morning began to grow large. It was a night of
little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and besieged
by questions.
Six o clock struck on the bells of the church that was so conveniently
near to Mr. Utterson s dwelling, and still he was digging at the
problem. Hitherto it had touched him on the intellectual side alone;
but now his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved; and as
he lay and tossed in the gross darkness of the night and the curtained
room, Mr. Enfield s tale went by before his mind in a scroll of
lighted pictures. He would be aware of the great field of lamps of
a nocturnal city; then of the figure of a man walking swiftly; then
of a child running from the doctor s; and then these met, and that
human Juggernaut trod the child down and passed on regardless of her
screams. Or else he would see a room in a rich house, where his friend
lay asleep, dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of
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