of some intellectual complexity. I believe that my impression was a straightforward blend of caricature and newspaper leader. I certainly had no respect for them. And now without servility or any insincerity whatever, as if it were a first-fruit of the Change, I found myself in the presence of a human being towards whom I perceived myself inferior and subordinate; before whom I stood without servility or any insincerity whatever, in an attitude of respect and attention. My inflamed, my rancid egotism--or was it after all only the chances of life?--had never once permitted that before the Change.
He emerged from his thoughts, still with a faint perplexity in his manner. "That speech I made last night," he said, "was damned mischievous nonsense, you know. Nothing can alter that. Nothing. . . . No! . . . Little fat gnomes in evening dress--gobbling oysters. Gulp!"
It was a most natural part of the wonder of that morning that he should adopt this incredible note of frankness, and that it should abate nothing from my respect for him.
"Yes," he said, "you are right. It's all indisputable fact, and I can't believe it was anything but a dream."
