I suppose every one experiences sudden moments of self-revelation that come without rhyme or reason, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky: revelations that make clear in one illuminative flash conditions and motives that have been tangled in a vague obscurity of doubt.
It was when such an instantaneous radiance of mental vision came to me I realized at once why I had come to England. It was simply and only that I might visit Stratford-on-Avon.
Nor was this pilgrimage to be lightly undertaken. Well I knew that the position Shakespeare occupied in my lists of hero-worship demanded that a fitting tribute of emotion be displayed at sight of such material memorials as were preserved at his birthplace.
Moreover, I knew that, whatever might be my sense of reverential homage, in me the power of emotional demonstration did not abound.
But it is ever my custom, when possible, to supply or amend such lacks as I may note in my nature, by any available means.
And what could be wiser than when going on such an important journey, and where I knew my own powers would fall short of an imperative requirement, to take with me some one who should adequately supplement my shortcomings?
Being of a methodical nature, I have my friends as definitely classified and as neatly pigeon-holed as my old letters. Mentally running over my collection of available companions, I stopped at Sentimental Tommy, knowing I need look no further.
Of course Sentimental Tommy was not his real name, but it is my custom to bestow upon my friends such titles as seem to me appropriate or descriptive.
Sentimental Tommy, then, was the only man in the world, so far as I knew, who would make a perfect associate for a day in Stratford. His especial qualifications were a chameleonic power of adaptability, an instant and sympathetic comprehension of mood, an unbounded capacity for sentiment, and a genius for comradeship. He was also a man to whom one could say “come, and he cometh,” without any fuss about it.