Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning feverishly. As he said he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort of lightheaded certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, “You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring.”
He then studied the answer on his friend’s fingers. The answer was, “Go to hell!”
The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the Doctor.
“Perhaps I should rather say,” said Syme on his fingers, “that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart of lush woods.”
His companion disdained to reply.
“Or yet again,” tapped Syme, “it is positive, as is the passionate red