"Yes, 'twas so," he admitted meditatively. "But 'tain't so now. Shoes is better, most things is better, I guess. Seems like water runnin' up hill, don't it, sir?"
It did. I didn't like it. I got away from the old man, and walked by myself—like Kipling's cat.
"Of course, of course!" I said to myself impatiently, "I may as well expect to find everything as much improved from what it was in my time as in, say, sixty years before. That sort of progress goes faster and faster. Things change, but people—"
And here is where I got this creepy sense of unreality.
At first everything was so strange to me, and my sister was so kind and thoughtful, so exquisitely considerate of my feelings and condition, that I had failed to notice this remarkable circumstance—so were the other people. It was like being in a—well, in a house-party of very nice persons. Kind, cheerful, polite—here I suddenly realized that I had not seen a grouchy face, heard an unkind remark, felt, as one does feel through silk and broadcloth, the sense of discontent and disapproval.
There was one, the somewhat hard-faced old lady, Mrs. Talbot, of whom I had hopes. I sought her, and laid myself out to please her by those little attentions which are so grateful to an elderly woman from a young man.
Her accepting these as a commonplace, her somewhat too specific inquiries about my health, suddenly reminded me that I was not a young man——
She talked on while I made again that effort at readjustment which was so hideously hard. Gone in a night—all my young manhood—gone untasted!
"Do you find it difficult to concentrate your attention?" she was saying, a steely eye fixed upon my face.
"I beg your pardon, madam. I fear I do. You were saying—"