“‘Neither, for the moment,’ he replied, ‘thank God. Half an hour ago I was Smythe, half an hour hence I shall be Smith. For the present half-hour I am a man.’
“There was a pleasant, hearty ring in his voice, and a genial, kindly light in his eyes, and he held himself like a frank gentleman.
“‘You are certainly an improvement upon both of them,’ I said.
“He laughed a sunny laugh, with just the shadow of sadness dashed across it. ‘Do you know my idea of Heaven?’ he said.
“‘No,’ I replied, somewhat surprised at the question.
“‘Ludgate Circus,’ was the answer. ‘The only really satisfying moments of my life,’ he said, ‘have been passed in the neighbourhood of Ludgate Circus. I leave Piccadilly an unhealthy, unwholesome prig. At Charing Cross I begin to feel my blood stir in my veins. From Ludgate Circus to Cheapside I am a human thing with human feeling throbbing in my heart, and human thought throbbing in my brain—with fancies, sympathies, and hopes. At the Bank my mind becomes a blank. As I walk on, my senses grow coarse and blunted; and by the time I reach Whitechapel I am a poor little uncivilised cad. On the return journey it is the same thing reversed.’
“‘Why not live in Ludgate Circus,’ I said, ‘and be always as you are now?’
“‘Because,’ he answered, ‘man is a pendulum, and must travel his arc.’
“‘My dear Mac,’ said he, laying his hand upon my shoulder, ‘there is only one good thing about me, and that is a moral. Man is as God made him: don’t be so sure that you can take him to pieces and improve him. All my life I have sought to make myself an unnaturally superior person. Nature has retaliated by making me also an unnaturally inferior person. Nature abhors lopsidedness. She turns out man as a whole, to be developed as a whole. I always wonder, whenever I come across a supernaturally pious, a supernaturally moral, a supernaturally cultured person, if they also have a reverse self.’
“I was shocked at his suggested argument, and walked by his side for a while without speaking. At last, feeling curious on the subject, I asked him how his various love affairs were progressing.