ATDTDA (21): Well blimey, 602-603

[Paul Nightingale]

The action turns to Yashmeen and her fear of surveillance (mentioned on
595). Here, the focus is on the mysterious Chong, who might or might not be
Kensington Sid. Upon recognising him, or thinking she does, Yashmeen blows
his cover (if indeed there is one to blow) by calling out in mockery,
invoking their shared history at Cambridge with Renfrew (602). His lack of
credibility here--as a poorly-disguised spy--is in stark contrast to the
weight given the Fourth Dimension. Is Yashmeen's speech, then, a
performance, given that Chong/Sid is always in attendance?

When attempting to describe the Fourth Dimension Yashmeen says "'Time' is
only our least perfect approximation". The double act that is Gottlob and
Humfried produce a series of alternates increasingly unlikely: "At
Gottingen?" (603). The inadequacy of mere language here surrounds this
concept ("The what?") but also attaches to Chong: his identity includes some
confusion regarding the term Theosophoid, "like a Theosophist, but not
entirely" (602). His speech is "an attempt to distract" rather than
communicate. Werfner identifies Chong/Sid as "one of Renfrew's operatives":
cf. the earlier scene in Cambridge, Renfrew's "campaign of inducement if not
outright seduction" (499). Renfrew's "running accumulation of dossiers ...
kept on everyone who had ever crossed his path" etc (495) might be
juxtaposed to Root Tubsmith's gambling system, his desire to avoid "random
luck" (538).