'What's the matter now?' I asked uneasily.
'Why are you always trying to be some one else? Why not be what you really are?'
'But what am I really? Again I ask you?'
'I do hate to see you playing the ass; and think how they must laugh at you!'
The glossy and respected image of myself I had left in the house behind us began to tarnish.
'And what next?' my querulous companion went on. 'What will you be in South Kensington, I wonder? a sad and solitary Satan, disillusioned and distinguished, or a bluff, breezy sailor, fond of his bottle and his boon companions?'
AN ANOMALY
When people embellish their conversation with a glitter of titles, and drag into it self-aggrandizing anecdotes, though I laugh at this peacock vein in them, I do not harshly condemn it. Nay, since I too am human, since I too belong to the great household, would it be surprising if—say once or twice in my life—I also should have gratified this tickling relish of the tongue?