en when he
was one of the first angels in it. Look at his moustaches, they are so
grown as to insult humanity. In the name of the sacred heavens look at
his hair. In the name of God and the stars, look at his hat."

I stirred uncomfortably.

"But, after all," I said, "this is very fanciful--perfectly absurd. Look
at the mere facts. You have never seen the man before, you--"

"Oh, the mere facts," he cried out in a kind of despair. "The mere
facts! Do you really admit--are you still so sunk in superstitions, so
clinging to dim and prehistoric altars, that you believe in facts? Do
you not trust an immediate impression?"

"Well, an immediate impression may be," I said, "a little less practical
than facts."

"Bosh," he said. "On what else is the whole world run but immediate
impressions? What is more practical? My friend, the philosophy of
this world may be founded on facts, its business is run on spiritual
impressions and atmospheres. Why do you refuse or accept a clerk? Do you
measure his skull? Do you read up his physiological state in a handbook?
Do you go upon facts at all? Not a scrap. You accept a clerk who may
save your business--you refuse a clerk that may rob your till, entirely
upon those immediate mystical impressions under the pressure of which
I pronounce, with a perfect sense of certainty and sincerity, that that
man walking in that street beside us is a humbug and a villain of some
kind."

"You always put things well," I said, "but, of course, such things
cannot immediately be put to the test."

Basil sprang up straight and swayed with the swaying car.

"Let us get off and follow him," he said. "I bet you five pounds it will
turn out as I say."

And with a scuttle, a jump, and a run, we were off the car.

The man with the curved silver hair and the curved Eastern face walked
along for some time, his long splendid frock-coat flying behind him.
Then he swung sharply out of the great glaring road and disappeared down
an ill-lit alley. We swung silently after him.

"This is an odd turning for a man of that kind to take," I said.

"A man of what kind?" asked my friend.

"Well," I said, "a man with that kind of expression and those boots. I
thought it rather odd, to tell the truth, that he should be in this part
of the world at all."

"Ah, yes," said Basil, and said no more.

We tramped on, looking steadily in front of us. The elegant figure, like
the figure of a black swan, was silhouetted sudd