At the next station he implored a silvery-haired old gentleman. Old age, he had heard, has known griefs, and learned pity.
The keeper showed the certificates.
“Ah!” said Senex; “poor young man. Now don't agitate yourself. It is all for your good. Pray go quietly. Very painful, very painful.” And he hobbled away as fast as he could. It is by shirking the painful some live to be silvery old.
Next he tried a policeman. Bobby listened to him erect as a dart.
The certificates were shown him.
He eyed them and said sharply, “All right.” Nor could Alfred's entreaties and appeals to common sense attract a word or even a look from him. Alfred cried “Help! murder! If you are Englishmen, if you are Christians, help me.”
This soon drew a crowd round him, listening to his fiery tale of wrong, and crying “Shame, shame! Let him go.” The keepers touched their heads, winked, and got out and showed the certificates; the crowd melted away like wax before those two suns of evidence (unsworn). The train moved on.
It was appalling. How could he ever get free? Between his mind and that of his fellows there lay a spiritual barrier more impassible than the walls of fortified cities.
Yet, at the very next station, with characteristic tenacity of purpose, he tried again; for he saw a woman standing near, a buxom country woman of forty. Then he remembered that the Naked Eye was not yet an extinct institution among her sex. He told her his tale, and implored her to use her own eyes. She seemed struck, and did eye him far more closely than the men had: and told the keepers they ought to be ashamed of themselves; he was no madman, for she had seen madmen. They showed her the certificates.
“Oh, I am no scholar!” said she contemptuously; “ye can't write my two eyes out of my head.”