wonder at his going to the house of a very good man."

"What very good man?" I asked with exasperation.

"The operation of time is a singular one," he said with his
imperturbable irrelevancy. "It is not a true statement of the case
to say that I have forgotten my career when I was a judge and a
public man. I remember it all vividly, but it is like remembering
some novel. But fifteen years ago I knew this square as well as
Lord Rosebery does, and a confounded long sight better than that
man who is going up the steps of old Beaumont's house."

"Who is old Beaumont?" I asked irritably.

"A perfectly good fellow. Lord Beaumont of Foxwood--don't you know
his name? He is a man of transparent sincerity, a nobleman who
does more work than a navvy, a socialist, an anarchist, I don't
know what; anyhow, he's a philosopher and philanthropist. I admit
he has the slight disadvantage of being, beyond all question, off
his head. He has that real disadvantage which has arisen out of
the modern worship of progress and novelty; and he thinks anything
odd and new must be an advance. If you went to him and proposed to
eat your grandmother, he would agree with you, so long as you put
it on hygienic and public grounds, as a cheap alternative to
cremation. So long as you progress fast enough it seems a matter
of indifference to him whether you are progressing to the stars or
the devil. So his house is filled with an endless succession of
literary and political fashions; men who wear long hair because it
is romantic; men who wear short hair because it is medical; men
who walk on their feet only to exercise their hands; and men who