ccadilly pavement--intoxicated!

It came into his head that he was not so very far from the Athenaeum,
and surely there if anywhere a bishop may recover his sense of
being--ordinary.

And behind everything, behind the tall buildings and the swarming people
there was still the sense of a wide illuminated space, of a light of
wonder and a Presence. But he must not give way to that again! He had
already given way altogether too much. He repeated to himself in a
whisper, "I am in Piccadilly."

If he kept tight hold upon himself he felt he might get to the Athenaeum
before--before anything more happened.

He murmured directions to himself. "Keep along the pavement. Turn to
the right at the Circus. Now down the hill. Easily down the hill. Don't
float! Junior Army and Navy Stores. And the bookseller."

And presently he had a doubt of his name and began to repeat it.

"Edward Princhester. Edward Scrope, Lord Bishop of Princhester."

And all the while voices within him were asserting, "You are in the
kingdom of Heaven. You are in the presence of God. Place and time are a
texture of illusion and dreamland. Even now, you are with God."

(6)

The porter of the Athenaeum saw him come in, looking well--flushed
indeed--but queer in expression; his blue eyes were wide open and
unusually vague and blue.

He wandered across towards the dining-room, hesitated, went to look at
the news, seemed in doubt whether he would not go into the smoking-room,
and then went very slowly upstairs, past the golden angel up to the
great drawing-room.

In the drawing-room he found only Sir James Mounce, the man who knew
the novels of Sir Walter Scott by heart and had the minutest and most
unsparing knowledge of every detail in the life of that supreme giant of
English literature. He had even, it was said, acquired a Scotch burr in
the enthusiasm of his hero-worship. It was usually sufficient only to
turn an ear towards him for him to talk for an hour or so. He was now
studying Bradshaw.

The bishop snatched at him desperately. He felt that if he went away
there would be no hold left upon the ordinary things of life.

"Sir James," he said, "I was wondering the other day when was the exact
date of the earliest public ascription of Waverley to Scott."

"Eh!" said Sir James, "but I'd like to talk that over with ye. Indeed
I would. It would be depending very largely on what ye called 'public.'
But--"

He explained something about an engagem