nd by a dim lamp I saw
pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London was rising
against something that London had hardly heard of. Then I suddenly
saw, as in one obvious picture, that the modern world is an immense and
tumultuous ocean, full of monstrous and living things. And I saw that
across the top of it is spread a thin, a very thin, sheet of ice, of
wicked wealth and of lying journalism.

And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I heard
it crack.

XXXVI. A Somewhat Improbable Story

I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through
very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclusion
that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read it through very
carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. The image and the
idea of it clung to me through a great part of my boyhood; I may have
dreamt it before I could talk; or told it to myself before I could read;
or read it before I could remember. On the whole, however, I am certain
that I did not read it, for children have very clear memories about
things like that; and of the books which I was really fond I can still
remember, not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position
of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline to
the opinion that it happened to me before I was born.

.....

At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages of the
atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, for the sake of
argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch restaurants
in the City where men take their food so fast that it has none of the
quality of food, and take their half-hour's vacation so fast that it has
none of the qualities of leisure; to hurry through one's leisure is the
most unbusiness-like of actions. They all wore tall shiny hats as if
they could not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all
had one eye a little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In
short, they were the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their
fetters clanking. Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest
chain ever tied to a man--it is called a watch-chain.

Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man who
almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all
the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them in all
manner. He wore a high shiny hat and a long