'I have just come across a passage that will delight you,' said Earwaker, taking up a book. 'Perhaps you know it.'
He read from Sir Thomas Brown's Pscudodoxia Epidemica. '"Men's names should not only distinguish them. A man should be something that all men are not, and individual in somewhat beside his proper name. Thus, while it exceeds not the bound of reason and modesty, we cannot condemn singularity. Nos numerus sumus is the motto of the multitude, and for that reason are they fools."'
Peak laughed his approval.
'It astonishes me,' he said, lighting his pipe, 'that you can go on writing for this Sunday rag, when you have just as little sympathy with its aims as I have. Do get into some less offensive connection.'
'What paper would you recommend?' asked the other, with his significant smile.
'Why need you journalise at all?'
'On the whole, I like it. And remember, to admit that the multitude are fools is not the same thing as to deny the possibility of progress.'
'Do you really believe yourself a democrat, Earwaker?'
'M—m—m! Well, yes, I believe the democratic spirit is stronger in me than any other.'
Peak mused for a minute, then suddenly looked up.