"I had no idea."
He stopped dead. He regarded me gravely. "Can it be," he said, "that I have formed a Habit?"
"Well, it looks like it. Doesn't it?"
He pulled down his lower lip between finger and thumb. He regarded a puddle at his feet.
"My mind is much occupied," he said. "And you want to know why! Well, sir, I can assure you that not only do I not know why I do these things, but I did not even know I did them. Come to think, it is just as you say; I never have been beyond that field . . . And these things annoy you?"
For some reason I was beginning to relent towards him. "Not annoy," I said. "But—imagine yourself writing a play!"
"I couldn't."
"Well, anything that needs concentration."
"Ah!" he said, "of course," and meditated. His expression became so eloquent of distress, that I relented still more. After all, there is a touch of aggression in demanding of a man you don't know why he hums on a public footpath.
"You see," he said weakly, "it's a habit."
"Oh, I recognise that."
