I fear my sudden change of expression betrayed the fact that the idea was repugnant to one familiar rather with foreign politics and with the Classics than with the reporters’ side of the paper.
Mr. Caliban looked at my collar with his kindly eyes, and kept them fixed upon it for some seconds. He then smiled (if such a man could be said to smile) and continued:
“I want to tell you something....”
There was profound silence for a little while, during which a number of thoughts passed through my mind. I remembered that Dr. Caliban was Editor at that moment of the Sunday Herald. I remembered that I was his right hand, and that without me the enormous labour he weekly undertook could never have been accomplished without trespassing upon the sanctity of the Sabbath. After a little hesitation, he pulled down his waistcoat, hitched his trousers at the knees, crossed his legs, made a half-turn towards me (for his study-chair was mounted upon a swivel), and said:
“It’s like this:— ...”
I assured him that I would do what he wished, for I knew, whenever he spoke in this tone, that there was something to be done for England.
“It’s like this,” he went on, “I have found a man here who should count, who should tell. It is a fearful thought that such a mind can have remained so long hidden. Here is a man with something in him quite peculiar and apart—and he is unknown! It is England through and through, and the best of England; it is more than that. Even where I disagree with him, I find something like a living voice. He gets right at one, as it were ... yet I never heard his name!”
Here Mr. Caliban, having stopped for a moment, as though seeking something in his memory, declaimed in a rich monotone: