One day he left us, and a few months later I met him in Market Street. He looked prosperous, smart and intensely happy.
“Are you busy?” he asked. “No? Well, come with me.”
He slipped his arm in mine, led me into Mosley Street, [92] ]and stopped in front of the large, dismal office of the Calico Printers’ Association.
“That,” said he, “is mine. Now, come into Albert Square.”
When we had arrived there he pointed to the Town Hall.
“That also is mine. The Lord Mayor gave it to me with a golden key. Here is the golden key.”
Producing an ordinary latchkey from his pocket, he carefully held it in the palm of his hand for my inspection.
“It is,” he announced, “studded with diamonds. But you can’t see the diamonds. Crafty Lord Mayor! You don’t catch him napping. He’s hidden them deep in the gold....”
I enjoyed this poor fellow’s company more than I did that of a very old woman to whom I was introduced in a pauper asylum. She was sitting on a low stool and, pointing at her head with her skinny forefinger, “It’s pot! It’s pot!” she said.
But even she provided me with more exhilaration than do the tens (or perhaps hundreds) of thousands of real freaks who, I imagine, inhabit every part of the globe. I allude to the vast throng of people who arise at eight or thereabouts, go to the City every morning, work all day and return home at dusk; who perform this routine every day, and every day of every year; who do it all their lives; who do it without resentment, without anger, without even a momentary impulse to break away from their surroundings. Such people amaze and stagger one. To them life is not an adventure; indeed, I don’t know what they consider it. They marry and, in their tepid, uxorious way, love. But love to them is not a mystery, or an adventure, and its consummation is not a sacrament. They do not travel; they do not want to travel. They do not even hate anybody.