The Man Who Lost Himself

up on his first week in London, so he knew something of the ways of E

n is the most fatal weakness of man, he crossed the hall, and seeing some gent

aving made this discovery he came downstairs again where good fortune, in the form of a bald

of Aristocracy and old crusted conservatism, might have felt qualms of political conscience, but for the fact that earthly politics, social theories, and social instincts were less

the arms of a gentleman who was ent

His Majesty's Opposition, the Queen bee of this hive where he was about to sit down to lunch. The Queen

swing doors before me

ce was

o, lay tables, tables, tables, all occupied by twos and threes and

wn self respect and self confidence. The cold bath w

lking between the tables and looki

urious manner of the seated Briton, the eyes of others fell away, others nodded frigidly, it seemed to Jones. Then, like a pilot fish before a shark leading

y ice. They were the easiest things to order. He would have or

ted after the Charge of the Light Brigade, would have

nothing-he was seated at their camp fire, sharing their food

all sorts of senses that seemed newly developed. Not a down on him, Jone

mattered quite a lot, more than perhaps it ever mattered to the other man. Is the soul such a shallow and blind thing that it cannot sort

ed the coolness of others towards the supposed body

personality he had put on had nerves curiously associated with his own nerves, and that, though he might say to himself a hun

nd he found himself contemplating the wine card of the Senior Conservative,

cess and all the aristocracy. Unlike the Almanach de Gotha, however, the price of each

ways' Cyder, the favourite tip

ut enthusiasm. He had taken a dislike

als have you g

ner

card was nonplussed.

id he. "Get me s

h all the more ease, because he found now that nobody was looking at him; his self consciousness died down, and he began speculating on the men

ntom thing, a link undiscoverable yet somehow there. This tribal expression i

oms like grooms, lawyers like lawyers, politicians like politicians. More, it has been undeniably proved

, and a common want of ideas allows ext

Radical Politicians on the other hand, shape to a common idea-evil-but still an idea. Jones was not thinking this, he was just recognising that all these men belong

ted at by the woman in the feather boa. The wildness of a monkey condemned to live amongst goats, hanging on to their

piece of news in the evening newspaper his mental powers became focussed on the question that lay at the very heart of all this business. It st

at guy comm

s the q

ind no ans

al joker he suddenly finds his twin image to defraud. Rochester had evidently done nothing to bar him from society. Though perhaps coldly recei

with a snap. One of the confounded waite

"What you doing?

d snapped it from him, finished it, devoured a wafer, and then, rising to his feet, left the room. It was

men in huge arm chairs, men with legs stretched out, men smoking big cigars and talki

fetched his hat and cane an

waiter to credit him with the luncheon, but a trifle like th

till unanswered question, "Why

a cold grue such as he had never experienced before. For a moment he saw himself hauled before a British Court of

ircumstances. His tale would all hang together, simply because it was the truth. This inborn assurance heartened him a lot, and, more cheerful now, he began to recognise more of the truth. His position was very solid. Every one had accepted him. Unless he came an awful bump over some crime committed by the late defunct, he could go on forever as the Earl of Rochester. He

the National Gallery to Regent Circus, then up Regent Street and Oxford Street, and along Oxford Street towards the West. He fo

city! Those battalions of brick houses, bits of corpse

contrast between the power, ease, affluence and splendour of the surroundings of the Ear

. From here Carlton House Te

es had seemed as absurd to him as feathers in a monkey's cap. It was here in ultr

o feel the vaguest antipathetic stirrin

s. It was seven o'clock when he reached