Chapter 182: Mr. Runaway from the Madhouse

Chapter 181 – Mr. Runaway from the Madhouse
In Wheatstone’s Musical Instrument Shop, Arthur looked at the two phonographs sitting on the counter and took off his hat in honor of Wheatstone.

“Thank you for your cooperation, good citizen.”

Wheatstone just braced one hand on the counter and covered his forehead with the other, “May you never have the opportunity to salute me again.”

Arthur wasn’t annoyed at Wheatstone’s rudeness, but rather returned rather calmly, “On that note, I think you should be lacking in consideration. I think we shall meet again soon, either at the Royal Society or at the Musical Instrument House.”

“All right, all right.” Wheatstone waved his hand, “So, Mr. Hastings, now that you have the phonograph, what about the loss of the gun?”

“Losing the gun?” Arthur lifted his head slightly, as if trying to remember.

Wheatstone was filled with suspicion, “Is it hard to believe that you are trying to backtrack?”

Arthur just calmly said, “I don’t know where you got the news about Scotland Yard’s lost guns from. However, with all due respect, Scotland Yard has quite strict internal management regulations, and every one of our officers manages their firearms very closely. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for us to have something like a lost gun.”

Wheatstone sniffed with his mouth wide open for half a day, “How in the world did you …… you manage to achieve such a degree?”

“What is the thing you are referring to?”

Wheatstone said while gesturing, “It’s that …… that ability to open one’s eyes.”

Arthur spoke as if he had amnesia, “Mr. Wheatstone, your words are preverbal. I reckon that you should be sick, do you need me to drop you off at the Betlem Royal Hospital on my way back? As you may not know, I am a very warm-hearted person.”

Sweat broke out on Wheatstone’s head when he heard this.

But anyone who was a Londoner knew what the Bettlem Royal Hospital was for, it treated nothing else, it specialized in mental illness.

He busily waved his hands and said: ”No, no, no, no, no, I just didn’t sleep well last night and I am a bit nervous, other than that, there is no big problem. Therefore, I don’t want you to bother about my health. Mr. Hastings, take your time, I won’t see you off.”

Arthur nodded, “Well then, Mr. Wheatstone, please take care of your health, I think we will need you again later.”

At those words, Arthur turned around and was about to head out the door when he saw a young man with an umbrella standing just outside the door.

The young man’s appearance looked a little familiar.

But before Arthur could remember who he was, the other man had already pushed open the door of the musical instrument store and rushed in.

“It’s you! Finally, I’ve let me catch you! I knew you would definitely come back again! Sigma, you won’t be able to escape me today!”

“Sigma?” Arthur stared at the other’s face for a while before remembering who he was.

This was none other than that Cambridge student William Thackeray who had been enraged by Elder at the Musical Instrument House in the first place.

And the so-called Sigma should be Seo?

But the fact that the other party could pronounce the three syllables Xu Zhimo like this could not be entirely blamed on him, after all, this pronunciation was still a bit difficult for an authentic English gentleman.

If it was a different time when he wasn’t usually busy, Arthur might have stopped to chat with the other party for a couple of minutes, but now he obviously didn’t have the leisure time to do so.

Arthur opened his mouth and said, “Sir, you may have mistaken me for someone else, I am neither σ (sigma) nor α (alpha), I have nothing to do with those Greek letters, and at the same time, I don’t have any interest in using σ to find the average or α to calculate the angle. So now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some urgent business to attend to.”

But Thackeray was clearly not listening, the arrogant young man stared at Arthur dead in the face, and a touch of resignation actually surfaced on his haughty face.

“Do you …… think I’m eager to find you? Damn! What should I tell you about this! For fuck’s sake, maybe I shouldn’t have believed you and that rude friend’s bullshit in the first place. When I got back to school, I searched all the literary fellowships, but there wasn’t a single one of them named Sigma, and I couldn’t even find a name that weird on the roster of past students.”

Arthur reassured, “It’s okay, it’s normal that you can’t find it, it’s not your fault. If you find it, then I’ll start to doubt the reality of the world instead.”

Hearing this, Thackeray just clenched his fists, he held his tongue for half a day before he asked with a reddened face, “So, you were lying to me from the very beginning? That poem, it was your work at all?”

“No, no, no.” Arthur was always honest in this regard, “I just borrowed it, or you can judge me as a plagiarist, or plagiarized, anyway, it’s whatever you want, as long as you’re happy. Mr. Thackeray, I know you hate my friend, so you hate me along with him. It’s no big deal. I understand. It’s just human nature. But now that I’ve admitted plagiarism to you, you should be satisfied now, right? If you’re satisfied, please make way, I’m really in a hurry.”

Who knew that when Thackeray heard this, not only did he not lose his temper, but he felt that Arthur was defying him.

This young man with a strong sense of self-esteem pursed his lips and trembled, “You’re holding me in contempt! Do you think I would take the honor that is rightfully yours? Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Sigma, I’m afraid you have the wrong idea. As much as I wish to become famous, I would never accomplish myself in such a way as to tarnish my own honor!”

Arthur was clouded by his headless paragraph. Even the socially phobic Wheatstone standing behind the counter couldn’t help but spit out, “Mr. Hastings, it seems that there is a patient here who deserves to be sent to the Royal Hospital of Bertram even more than I do.”

Arthur wondered, “Mr. Thackeray, what on earth are you talking about?”

“Saying what?”

Thackeray then realized his outburst, he took a deep breath and tried his best to calm himself, “Mr. Sigma, first of all, I have to apologize to you, since I wanted to compete with you, I submitted your song Farewell Kangqiao to Cambridge University’s poetry competition this year without your permission.

But at the same time, I would like to congratulate you because your work won the first place in the internal competition and succeeded in winning the principal’s gold medal. Although I don’t know exactly why that poem was better than my work, but you won is a win, and your attainment in poetry is indeed better than mine.

Perhaps that friend of yours is right, I am indeed not suited to the field of literature. I can’t catch up with either Alfred or you.”

Hearing this, Arthur only felt his scalp tingle as he scratched his head and asked, “Wait, you said ‘Farewell to Cambridge’ won the gold medal? Although I think that poem is very good, but if you compare it with Mr. Tennyson, especially with that Timbuktu, there is still a certain gap ah.”

The more Thackeray listened, the more he felt stifled, “I’m glad that you recognize Alfred’s talent, but his poem ‘Timbuktu’ was last year’s gold medal piece. As for this year, Alfred did not compete, so that gold medal of yours is indeed well deserved.

To tell you the truth, the reason I came to you in such a hurry was to ask you to attend the awards ceremony to be held in Cambridge next month. After all, I can’t take the stage and risk your honor.”

“Go to Cambridge to receive an award?” Arthur held his forehead and said, “Then you might as well just kill me. If I let those classmates of mine know about this news, I’m afraid I won’t have to hang around in the alumni circle in the future.”

Hearing this, Thackeray asked in surprise, “Are you a graduate of Oxford?”

Arthur frowned when he heard this, “Mr. Thackeray, although I respect you, I still have to strongly request you to retract your attack on my life!”

“Ah …… so you are not related to Oxford.” Thackeray also breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this, he covered his chest and said, “That’s good …… Fortunately, you are not a graduate of Oxford, if the school knew that I let an Oxford man take the top spot in the poetry competition, even if I don’t get expelled, I will still have to be squeezed by my classmates for quite a while. ”

“That’s right, I have nothing to do with Oxford.” Arthur cut in, “That friend of mine is the authentic old Oxford.”

Thackeray was stunned at first, he thought back to the encounter that day and suddenly had a feeling of relief, he muttered, “Then it’s no wonder, I told you so …… he does have a strong, stubborn Oxford air about him.”

He was reminiscing about Arthur’s words, and when he came back to his senses, he suddenly realized that Arthur, who had just been standing in front of him, had actually disappeared without a trace at some point.

He hurriedly searched privately, but no trace of Arthur could be seen anywhere in the store.

“This ……”

Thackeray rushed to ask the shopkeeper Whisper Channel, “Sir, may I ask where the gentleman who was just standing here has gone?”

Wheatstone bristled back, “He left through the back door.”

“Huh?!”

Thackeray hurriedly tried to go after him, but before he could get out of the door, he saw a black public carriage drive past the window, and Arthur was sitting in it taking off his hat and greeting him through the window, “I shall see you again sometime, Mr. Thackeray. Remember to give my regards to your friend Alfred Tennyson.”

The carriage sped past, its wheels picking up circle after circle of muddy water, and disappeared at the end of Central Avenue as Thackeray watched.

Thackeray saw this and knew for sure he would not be able to catch up.

He stood in the store anxiously circling in place, and suddenly, as if he had remembered something, he rushed to Wheatstone with one strong step.

“Excuse me, do you know the name of that gentleman just now? He came here, he must be looking for you to order a musical instrument, right? Do you have his home address here, or a work address would be fine.”

Wheatstone thought about the various acts Arthur had just done to him, and looked at the young man in front of him who appeared to be even more naïve than himself, and returned with malice, “This gentleman, don’t listen to the nonsense of that gentleman just now, his name is Sigma. Mr. Arthur Sigma, and his home address is the Betlem Royal Hospital in Liverpool Street, Financial City.”

Though Thackeray could not be called an old Londoner, he had heard a little about the name of the place.

He asked skeptically, “Betlem Royal Hospital? Isn’t that a place where mental patients are kept?”

Wheatstone stared earnestly into Thackeray’s eyes and gently patted him on the shoulder with one hand, “Sir, I just heard you mention in conversation that you are a Cambridge student who loves literature. Then you should know that it’s normal for poets to have some mental illnesses. For Mr. Sigma to be able to write poems that won gold medals, I think it would be basically impossible if he didn’t have some mental illness.”

(End of chapter)