why he wished for
more, he could not have given a reason. It was enough for the moment
that he desired it.

He found himself outside a flaring house, with the words 'Wine Shades
'in a blaze of wind-fluttered gas above the door, and painted placards
in the window: 'Wines from the Wood. Fine old Sherry, 10d., 8d., and 6d.
per dock glass.' He had never tasted sherry. Sherry surely was the
drink of many heroes. Shakespeare and Jonson drank it at the Mermaid.
He entered the place, called for his wine--'Your best,' he said, as he
threw his shilling on the counter--and sat down on a high stool to drink
it. Before his glass was empty he had flashed back into high spirits
again. He resumed his walk in a new exultation, and this time he knew
enough to attribute it to the wine. What a superb boon it conferred upon
the mind! How easy it seemed to soar out of sadness and loneliness into
these exalted regions of friendship with all created things. He walked
through the winter night with no knowledge of the route he took and with
no care. He could ask his way home at any time.

He came to the Metropolitan Music Hall in the Edgware Road, and suffered
himself to be borne in by the crowd at the doors. The place and its
like were strange to him. The performance seemed wholly contemptible
and absurd. Men and women screamed with laughter and roared applause at
jests which were either inane or hateful. A noisy man in a long-waisted
overcoat, whose skirts swept the stage, a blonde wig, flying yellow
whiskers, and a white hat at a raking angle, sang an idiotic song with
patter interspersed between the verses. He described a visit received
from Lord Off-his-Chump, Lady Off-her-Chump, and all the honourable
Misses Off-their-Chumps. The witticisms convulsed Paul's neighbours and
left him saturnine. He conceived a loathing and despite for the creature
on the stage which he had never felt before for any living thing. The
popular laughter and applause fed his personal hatred and disdain. He
made an involuntary sound of contempt as the 'lion comique' went off.

'Ah!' said a voice beside him. 'You don't like that?' Paul turned and
looked at the man who had accosted him. He was evidently a foreigner,
and his complexion was so jaundiced that he was the colour of a guinea.
What should have been the whites of his eyes were of a deep yellow.
His nose had a hook, high up, right between the eyes, and his lofty
forehead, narrowing to a peak, was ridged like