The art--and I dare say with diplomat chaps and that sort it
may properly be called an art--demands as its very essence that the
speaker seem to be himself convinced of the truth of that which he
utters. And the Honourable George in his youth mentioned for the
Foreign Office!
I turned away. The exhibition was quite too indecent. I left him to
mince at his meagre fare. As I glanced his way at odd moments
thereafter, he would be muttering feverishly to himself. I mean to
say, he no longer _was_ himself. He presently made his way to the
street, looking neither to right nor left. He had, in truth, the dazed
manner of one stupefied by some powerful narcotic. I wondered
pityingly when I should again behold him--if it might be that his poor
wits were bedevilled past mending.
My period of uncertainty was all too brief. Some two hours later, full
into the tide of our afternoon shopping throng, there issued a
spectacle that removed any lingering doubt of the unfortunate man's
plight. In the rather smart pony-trap of the Klondike woman, driven by
the person herself, rode the Honourable George. Full in the startled
gaze of many of our best people he advertised his defection from all
that makes for a sanely governed stability in our social organism.
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