and a half of nun's veiling, and fifty-three tortoise-shell side-combs.
I gazed on the _débris_ with apathy mingled with contempt. My movements
were languid, my plans of the vaguest. I knew that I wished to avoid my
wife, but had no clear idea how the avoiding was to be done.




V.

BUBBLES.


From Orme Square, a lean-faced, unkempt and haggard waif, I drifted to
Great Orme's Head and back again. Senile dementia had already laid its
spectral clutch upon my wizened cerebellum when I was rescued by some
kindly people, who tell me that they found me scorching down Hays Hill
on a cushion-tired ordinary. They have since told me that I was singing
"My name is John Wellington Wells, Hurrah!" and other snatches from a
pre-Wenusian opera.

These generous folk, though severely harassed by their own anxieties,
took me in and cared for me. I was a lonely man and a sad one, and they
bored me. In spite of my desire to give public expression to my
gratitude, they have refused to allow their names to appear in these
pages, and they consequently enjoy the proud prerogative of being the
only anonymous persons in this book. I stayed with them at the Bath Club
for four days, and with tears parted from them on the spring-board. They
would have kept me for ever, but that would have interfered with my
literary plans. Besides, I had a morbid desire to gaze on the Wenuses