'Cannot possibly with you.
At moment's notice undertaken escort two poor girls Rouen. Not even
time look in apologise. Go via Dieppe and leave Victoria few minutes.
Hope be back Thursday. Express sincerest regret Mr. Peak. Lament
appearance discourtesy. Will apologise personally. Common humanity
constrains go Rouen. Will explain Thursday. No time add another word.
Rush tickets train.'

'There you have the man!' cried Earwaker. 'How do you class such a mind
as that? Ten to one this is some Quixotic obligation he has laid upon
himself, and probably he has gone without even a handbag.'

'Vocally delivered,' said Peak, 'this would represent a certain stage
of drunkenness. I suppose it isn't open to such an explanation?'

'Malkin never was intoxicated, save with his own vivacity.'

They discussed the singular being with good-natured mirth, then turned
by degrees to other topics.

'I have just come across a passage that will delight you,' said
Earwaker, taking up a book. 'Perhaps you know it.'

He read from Sir Thomas Brown's _Pscudodoxia Epidemica_. '"Men's names
should not only distinguish them. A man should be something that all
men are not, and individual in somewhat beside his proper name. Thus,
while it exceeds not the bound of reason and modesty, we cannot condemn
singularity. _Nos numerus sumus_ is the motto of the multitude, and for
that reason are they fools."'

Peak laughed his approval.

'It astonishes me,' he said, lighting his pipe, 'that you can go on
writing for this Sunday rag, when you have just as little sympathy with
its aims as I have. Do get into some less offensive connection.'

'What paper would you recommend?' asked the other, with his significant
smile.

'Why need you journalise at all?'

'On the whole, I like it. And remember, to admit that the multitude are
fools is not the same thing as to deny the possibility of progress.'

'Do you really believe yourself a democrat, Earwaker?'

'M--m--m! Well, yes, I believe the democratic spirit is stronger in me
than any other.'

Peak mused for a minute, then suddenly looked up.

'And what am I?'

'I am glad nothing much depends on my successfully defining you.'

They laughed together.

'I suppose,' said Godwin, 'you can't call a man a democrat who
recognises in his heart and soul a true distinction of social classes.
Social, mark. The division I instinctively support is by no means
intellectual. The well-born fool is very often more su