My friend X. is normally the mildest of men. His temper is under perfect control; and in his favourite part of the angels' advocate he finds palliations and makes allowances for all those defections in the servants of the public which goad men to fury and which, since the War came in to supply incompetence with a cloak and a pretext, have been exasperatingly on the increase. Thus, serene and considerate, has X. gone his uncomplaining way for years.
But yesterday I found him on the kerb in the Strand inarticulate and purple with rage. His face was hardly recognisable, so distorted were those ordinarily placid features. His eyes were fixed on a receding taxi.
Fearing that he might be ill I took his arm; but he flung himself free. "Don't touch me," he said; "I can't bear it." Having reached a point in life when tact is second nature, I waited silently near him until the storm should have passed.
His eyes were still fixed.
After a short time he recovered sufficiently to turn to me and explain.
"I could have killed that fellow," he said.
"What fellow?"
"That taxi-driver. He went by slowly with his flag up and wouldn't look at me. I hailed him, and I know he heard, but he wouldn't look at me. Now I don't mind when they point, or make any kind of sign that they don't want to be hired, or say that they have no petrol, even if I don't believe it; but when they won't turn their heads or pay any attention whatever I could kill them. And there's such a lot of them like that. I swear," he went on, beginning to go purple again—"I swear that, if I had had a revolver just now, I should have shot him. When one man hails another, the man who is hailed must give some kind of an indication. It's only human. Society would fall to pieces if we all behaved like that chap. It's awful, awful! If I'd only thought of taking his number I'd run him in, and I'd carry it to the House of Lords if necessary. Such men—ugh!"
He broke down, smothered by righteous anger.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed as I was leaving, "if I'd only taken his number! "