, what I wanted. I said
"cigar," and he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the
money to wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that
my rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular
cigar, and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill,
seeking to convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture that my
rejection was a rejection of cigars in general, not of that particular
article. He mistook this for the ordinary impatience of common men, and
rushed forward, his hands filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing
them upon me. In desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the
more cigars I refused the more and more rare and precious cigars were
brought out of the deeps and recesses of the establishment. I tried in
vain to think of a way of conveying to him the fact that I had already
had the cigar. I imitated the action of a citizen smoking, knocking off
and throwing away a cigar. The watchful proprietor only thought I was
rehearsing (as in an ecstasy of anticipation) the joys of the cigar he
was going to give me. At last I retired baffled: he would not take the
money and leave the cigars alone. So that this restaurant-keeper (in
whose face a love of money shone like the sun at noonday) flatly and
firmly refused to receive the twopence that I certainly owed him; and
I took that twopence of his away with me and rioted on it for months. I
hope that on the last day the angels will break the truth very gently to
that unhappy man.

.....

This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, and the
moral of it is this--that civilisation is founded upon abstractions. The
idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed by physical motions at
all, because it is an abstract idea. And civilisation obviously would be
nothing without debt. So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific
sociology (which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation is
material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves how many of
the things that make up our Society, the Law, or the Stocks and Shares,
or the National Debt, you would be able to convey with your face and
your ten fingers by grinning and gesticulating to a German innkeeper.

XXV. A Cab Ride Across Country

Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies
a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but of
eccentric and unbalanced literary taste,