hurchill; to think of how
to explain.... The man was running up the room.

"I say ... I say, you beggars...."

I was beginning to wonder how it was that I felt such an absolute
conviction of being alone, and it was then, I believe, that in this
solitude that had descended upon my soul I seemed to see the shape of an
approaching Nemesis. It is permitted to no man to break with his past,
with the past of his kind, and to throw away the treasure of his future.
I began to suspect I had gained nothing; I began to understand that even
such a catastrophe was possible. I sat down in the nearest chair. Then
my fear passed away. The room was filling; it hummed with excited
voices. "Churchill! No better than the others," I heard somebody saying.
Two men had stopped talking. They were middle-aged, a little gray, and
ruddy. The face of one was angry, and of the other sad. "He wanted only
to be found out. What a fall in the mud." "No matter," said the other,
"one is made a little sad. He stood for everything I had been pinning my
faith to." They passed on. A brazen voice bellowed in the distance. "The
greatest fall of any minister that ever was." A tall, heavy journalist
in a white waistcoat was the centre of a group that turned slowly upon
itself, gathering bulk. "Done for--stood up to the last. I saw him get
into his brougham. The police had a job.... There's quite a riot down
there.... Pale as a ghost. Gurnard? Gurnard magnificent. Very cool and
in his best form. Threw them over without as much as a wink. Outraged
conscience speech. Magnificent. Why it's the chance of his life." ...
And then for a time the voices and the faces seemed to pass away and die
out. I had dropped my paper, and as I stooped to pick it up the voices
returned.

--"Granger ... Etchingham Granger.... Sister is going to marry
Gurnard."

I got on to my hands and knees to pick up the paper, of course. What I
did not understand was where the water came from. Otherwise it was
pretty clear. Somebody seemed to be in a fit. No, he wasn't drunk; look
at his teeth. What did they want to look at his teeth for; was he a
horse?

* * * * *

It must have been I that was in the fit. There were a lot of men round
me, the front row on their knees--holding me, some of them. A man in a
red coat and plush breeches--a waiter--was holding a glass of water;
another had a small bottle. They were talking about me under their
breaths. At one end o