of conjecture that for a time I greeted warily all who bore a title, a
mark of rank, or any similar appendage; who wore a uniform, weapon,
brass helmet, jewelled crown, coat of distinctive colour, or any
excessive superfluity of pearl or metal buttons; who went forth
surrounded by a retinue, sat publicly in a chair or allegorical
chariot, spoke loudly in the highways and places in a tone of official
pronouncement, displayed any feather, emblem, inscribed badge, or
printed announcement upon a pole, or in any way conducted themselves
in what we should esteem to be fitting to a position of high dignity.
From this arose the absence of outward enthusiasm with which I at
first received Sir Philip's extended favour; for although I had come
to distrust all the reasonable signs of established power, I
distrusted, to a much more enhanced degree, their complete absence;
and when I observed that the one in question was never accompanied by
a band of musicians or flower-strewers, that he mingled as though on
terms of familiar intercourse with the ordinary passers-by in the
streets, and never struck aside those who chanced to impede his
progress, and that he actually preferred those of low condition to
approach him on their feet, rather than in the more becoming attitude
of unconditional prostration, I reasoned with myself whether indeed he
could consistently be a person of well-established authority, or
whether I was not being again led away from my self-satisfaction by
another obliquity of barbarian logic. It was for this reason that I
now welcomed the admitted power which he has of incriminating persons
in a variety of punishable offences, and I perceived with an added
satisfaction that here, where this privilege is more fully understood,
few meet him without raising their hands to the upper part of their
heads in token of unquestioning submission; or, as one would interpret
the symbolism into actual words, meaning, "Thus, from this point to
the underneath part of our sandals, all between lies in the hollow of