I returned from the City about three o'clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick. I couldn't get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. 'Richard Hannay,' I kept telling myself, 'you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.'
It made me bite my lips to think of the
plans I had been building up those last years in Bulawayo. I had got my
pile—not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and I had figured out all
kinds of ways of enjoying myself. My father had brought me out from Scotland at
the age of six, and I had never been home since; so England was a sort of
Arabian Nights to me, and I counted on stopping there for the rest of my days.
Hitchcock´s 39 Steps
But from the first I was disappointed with it. In about a week I was tired of seeing sights, and in less than a month I had had enough of restaurants and theatres and race-meetings. I had no real pal to go about with, which probably explains things. Plenty of people invited me to their houses, but they didn't seem much interested in me. They would fling me a question or two about South Africa, and then get on their own affairs. A lot of Imperialist ladies asked me to tea to meet schoolmasters from New Zealand and editors from Vancouver, and that was the dismalest business of all. Here was I, thirty-seven years old, sound in wind and limb, with enough money to have a good time, yawning my head off all day. I had just about settled to clear out and get back to the veld, for I was the best bored man in the United Kingdom.
That afternoon I had been worrying my
brokers about investments to give my mind something to work on, and on my way
home I turned into my club—rather a pot-house, which took in Colonial members.
I had a long drink, and read the evening papers. They were full of the row in
the Near East, and there was an article about Karolides, the Greek Premier. I
rather fancied the chap. From all accounts he seemed the one big man in the show;
and he played a straight game too, which was more than could be said for most
of them. I gathered that they hated him pretty blackly in Berlin and Vienna,
but that we were going to stick by him, and one paper said that he was the only
barrier between Europe and Armageddon. I remember wondering if I could get a
job in those parts. It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might
keep a man from yawning.
About six o'clock I went home, dressed,
dined at the Cafe Royal, and turned into a music-hall. It was a silly show, all
capering women and monkey-faced men, and I did not stay long. The night was
fine and clear as I walked back to the flat I had hired near Portland Place.
The crowd surged past me on the pavements, busy and chattering, and I envied
the people for having something to do. These shop-girls and clerks and dandies
and policemen had some interest in life that kept them going. I gave
half-a-crown to a beggar because I saw him yawn; he was a fellow-sufferer. At
Oxford Circus I looked up into the spring sky and I made a vow. I would give
the Old Country another day to fit me into something; if nothing happened, I
would take the next boat for the Cape.
My flat was the first floor in a new block
behind Langham Place. There was a common staircase, with a porter and a liftman
at the entrance, but there was no restaurant or anything of that sort, and each
flat was quite shut off from the others. I hate servants on the premises, so I
had a fellow to look after me who came in by the day. He arrived before eight
o'clock every morning and used to depart at seven, for I never dined at home.
I was just fitting my key into the door
when I noticed a man at my elbow. I had not seen him approach, and the sudden
appearance made me start. He was a slim man, with a short brown beard and
small, gimlety blue eyes. I recognized him as the occupant of a flat on the top
floor, with whom I had passed the time of day on the stairs.
Novel: The Thirty-Nine
Steps
Author: John Buchan
Publication: 1915
Other works:
·
The Power House (1916)
·
Greenmantle (1916)
·
Mr Standfast (1919)
·
The Path of the King (1921)
·
Huntingtower (1922)
·
Midwinter (1923)
Vocabulary
Liverish: irritable.
Questions
about the reading
Did you like the beginning
of this story?
How do you relate to the
story (think about being a Latin American living in Spain, for example)?
Where was the protagonist?
How did he feel?
Where was he born?
Who did he meet when he was
opening the door?
What places are mentioned?
Did you find the vocabulary
difficult?
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