“How long have you been alive?” I asked.
“Only since I came to London.”
“I was alive for three years in Manchester, but during all those years I sat at a desk pretending to be a clerk, [277] ]I was dead, quite dead. So, you see, we really are young. You are about five, and I am nearly seven.”
He steered me into a restaurant which appeared to cater specially for night-birds, and Bain ate bacon and eggs, whilst I feasted on a dish of strawberries, brown bread and coffee.
“I would,” said I, “much prefer to have bacon and eggs, but strawberries seem to be more in the picture, don’t you think? I am sure I am behaving very nobly to fit into the picture at the expense of my yearning inside.... And now, where can we get a bath?”
. . . . . . . .
After that first visit I went frequently to the Crab Tree Club. There I met many poets and journalists and artists, and there, one night, a poet—a great strapping fellow, all bone and sinew and muscle—loudly challenged me to fight him. He is a man of some genius, well known both here and in America. The exact cause of his quarrel with me I have forgotten, but it appeared that, unwittingly, I had done him some real injury—or he thought I had. He spoke heatedly to me and I replied still more heatedly. Suddenly, he rose, faced me menacingly, and shouted:
“All right, then. Come and fight it out. Come and fight it out downstairs.”
He looked at me with loathing.
I must have paled, I think, for I know that his terrific anger was like an onslaught. But I realised that I must accept his challenge. I hated the thought of what was before me, and hoped it would soon be over.