65 pages • 2 hours read
G. K. ChestertonThe Man Who Was Thursday
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1908A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Unaccountable Conduct of Professor De Worms”
Sunday calls for order, and everyone is seated. He exposes Gogol as a police officer and tells Gogol to put his ID card on the table. It is the same blue card Syme received. Gogol removes his false beard, admits his deception, and congratulates himself on his performance. Sunday tells Gogol he likes him and wants to give him a chance, but if Gogol ever breathes a word of what he knows, he will kill him. Gogol is dismissed.
Sunday instructs Dr. Bull to carry on with the plans and leaves. Syme is the last one to leave the room. He is relieved to be away from the other men and thinks about what he should do next. Syme realizes he has his swordstick but has lost his cloak. He sees Professor de Worms standing near him and hurries away before the professor sees him. He is anxious to collect his thoughts and devise a plan.
Syme sits in the upper level of a nearby restaurant and eats lunch. When he comes downstairs, Professor de Worms is seated at a table. He avoids the professor and leaves. Syme wonders if Sunday told the professor to follow him. He weaves through the streets of London at a quick pace, in order to elude de Worms. He enters a tea shop and orders coffee. Professor de Worms enters the shop right behind him. Syme rushes out and runs after a bus, barely getting on board. He finds a seat and is incredulous when he hears the sound of de Worms’ labored breathing nearby.
After jumping from the bus, Syme runs through a maze of streets, determined to shake the professor. Despite his efforts, when he arrives at St. Paul’s Cathedral, he turns and sees de Worms shuffle toward him. However, de Worms walks right past him without saying a word. Syme, now furious, yells, “Catch me if you can,” (48) and sprints away. He turns and sees the professor run after him. Syme runs toward the docks and into a pub, and he is followed almost immediately by de Worms. The professor sits and orders a glass of milk.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Professor Explains”
Syme sits across from the professor. His sense of fear returns. He wonders if the chase is a test of some kind, or if the president suspects Syme of being a fraud.
de Worms looks directly at Syme and asks if he is a police officer. The two banter back and forth until the professor makes Syme swear he is not a policeman. Syme denies he is, to which the professor replies, “That’s a pity […] because I am” (50).
Stunned, Syme listens to de Worms explain he is a young actor in disguise and that his real name is Wilks. The two men throw their blue cards on the table. Syme remarks that now there are three policemen on the council. de Worms reminds him there are only two because Gogol is gone. Both men are relieved Sunday exposed Gogol as the spy because each thought he was the intended target.
The conversation then turns to the assassination of the Czar and the French President. Both men admit they are afraid of Sunday but renew their commitment to the cause. de Worms reminds Syme that the Marquis and Dr. Bull are in charge of the plan.
de Worms tells Syme how he became part of the council. There is a real Professor de Worms, a German philosopher who believes God is a destructive force in the universe. Wilks always disliked the professor and decided to impersonate him. He created a costume, dressed as the professor, and was able to fool a room full of the professor’s supporters. The real de Worms came to the party and was thrown out as an imposter.
A policeman approached de Worms the same way Syme was asked to join the force. de Worms went to a room where another police officer told him of their plans and gave him his blue card. He thinks the man he spoke to was quite large, but he cannot describe him. Before de Worms can finish his thought, Syme guesses it was because he talked to the man in the dark.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
At the beginning of Chapter 7, Gogol is exposed as a spy. The circumstances of Gogol’s expulsion show a puzzling aspect of Sunday’s behavior. He provides Gogol with a way to escape punishment when he releases him, contingent on his promise of secrecy. It is odd that a spy is released by his enemy under such circumstances. Equally odd, Gogol accepts the bargain, yet he is a policeman sworn to uncover anarchist plots.
The promise Sunday extracts from Gogol is the third of its kind. Gregory and Syme made promises to each other in Chapters 1 and 2. The promises bind the police officers with the anarchists in a peculiar partnership. However, as each council member is identified as a police officer, this partnership becomes desirable and unifies the group of detectives.
Sunday’s lenience with Gogol turns to impatience and ridicule when the Secretary points out the council’s protocol is for all members to vote on any plan. Sunday attacks the Secretary openly and in a disparaging manner: “Secretary […] if you’d take your head home and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. I can’t say. But it might” (44). Everyone at the meeting is taken aback by Sunday’s attitude. Sunday’s ambiguous behavior and identity eventually supersede anarchy as the central focus of the story.
The professor’s identity as a policeman is a relief to Syme. The way the police recruited both men becomes an important pattern as the other council members’ identities are revealed. In the next chapter, de Worms admits he has played his part so long he assumes some of the professor’s mannerisms, even among friends. This tendency foreshadows his despair later in the book, when he wonders why he allowed himself to “stray a little too near to hell” (124). The implication is that association with evil for too long has lasting consequences.
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