Looking at him, you'd have guessed him to be in his early thirties, but just possibly thirty-five. He was in fact forty-one. His blue eyes were striking against the dark brown of his mutton chops, and as penetrating as they were kindly. He wore a grey vest (complemented with gold buttons and pocketwatch chain), along with matching slacks and top hat. Moderately tall and fit, he always dressed this smartly and was always said to look in excellent health; in fact, the longer one was around him, the more "healthy" he seemed to be (years later the Constable told a colleague, "There was an energy about 'im, if you catch my meanin'; he sort o', well, exuded life. A magnetic chap.").
But today, staring at him across the little round table on the café patio, Douglas was thinking nothing so highly of Mr. Bishop: he had just noticed a pair of goggles peeking out of the younger man's vest pocket-- the sort worn by young inventors when riding their contraptions. "Jove blast 'im," he thought with contempt, "the progressive sort." But the Constable could not have been further from the truth.
Mr. Bishop certainly had been the progressive sort. Among the first at his university, actually, while studying on the Continent. His peers--those who comprised the "Au Courant Element" of the student body, anyway--had looked to him as something of a visionary. But, as the movement had become popular, his profound disinclination to be an intellectual sheep (the very disinclination which had resulted in his acceptance of Au Courant thought in the first place) quickly positioned him to reevaluate it; and, upon reevaluating it, he found it to be all bosh. When he said as much, the others leeringly labeled him "Ancienne Courant;" which, although bequeathed as a term of derision, was accepted as a badge of honor. You see, everybody now lived on the edge; therefore, nobody did. The only way to be a rebel anymore was not to be one: backward was the new forward.
"Well now, Mr. Bishop..." The Constable began, removing his bobby with one hand while smoothing his mustache with the other.
"Gabriel," came the abrupt interruption.
The officer squinted, slightly. "Gabriel," he continued after a moment, "Ol' Ferny there hadn't been seen in town for round about a year or so, I guess. Nor 'is schooner. As you claim to have some, uh, connection to 'im, and maybe to his passin'" (here he leaned forward and squinted harder) "I'll be needin' some answers from ya."
"And I'll be needing some from you, Douglas." replied Gabriel Bishop, tersely.
"Well I don't rightly know..." Douglas began.
"No, you don't." Gabriel interrupted again. "Are you in good health?"
Douglas looked even more confused than he normally did. "Well I don't know..."
"Yes, we've covered that," Gabriel cut in. "Now, are you in good health, man!"
Squinting harder than ever, Douglas finally replied, "I've got my mum's stomach is all, but it really only troubles me when my sister makes..."
"Splendid!" Gabriel exclaimed, "Then there's nothing else of note?"
The officer was now thoroughly befuddled. "I'd like to know why my health is of such precious concern to you, mister."
Gabriel gazed at him for a moment, smiling slyly. "Because you're coming with us, of course."
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