in England?"

"I meant what I said," said Basil Grant calmly. "The moment I saw
that man, I saw all these people stricken with a sudden and
splendid innocence. I saw that while all ordinary poor men in the
streets were being themselves, he was not being himself. I saw that
all the men in these slums, cadgers, pickpockets, hooligans, are
all, in the deepest sense, trying to be good. And I saw that that
man was trying to be evil."

"But if you never saw him before--" I began.

"In God's name, look at his face," cried out Basil in a voice that
startled the driver. "Look at the eyebrows. They mean that infernal
pride which made Satan so proud that he sneered even at heaven 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?"