because in them there did not seem to be anything to understand,
and I am quite certain that they did not understand me. More,
when they came to learn that I was radical in my views and had
written certain "dreadful" and somewhat socialistic books in the
form of fiction, they both feared and mistrusted me as an enemy
to their particular section of the race. As I had not married and
showed no inclination to do so, their womenkind also, out of
their intimate knowledge, proclaimed that I led an immoral life,
though a little reflection would have shown them that there was
no one in the neighbourhood which for a time I seldom left, who
could possibly have tempted an educated creature to such courses.

Terrible is the lot of a man who, while still young and
possessing the intellect necessary to achievement, is deprived of
all ambition. And I had none at all. I did not even wish to
purchase a peerage or a baronetcy in this fashion or in that,
and, as in my father's case, my tastes were so many and so
catholic that I could not lose myself in any one of them. They
never became more than diversions to me. A hobby is only really
amusing when it becomes an obsession.

At length my lonesome friendlessness oppressed me so much that
I took steps to mitigate it. In my college life I had two
particular friends whom I think I must have selected because
they were so absolutely different from myself.

They were named Bastin and Bickley. Bastin--Basil was his
Christian name--was an uncouth, shock-headed, flat-footed person
of large, rugged frame and equally rugged honesty, with a mind
almost incredibly simple. Nothing surprised him because he lacked