5--How It Appeared to the Man in the Street

Still, Horvendile was not quite routed by these heaped follies. "For,
after all," says Horvendile, in his own folly, "it is for the normal
human being that books are made, and not for mummies and men of law
and scavengers."

So Horvendile went through a many streets that were thronged with
persons travelling by compulsion from they did not know where toward a
goal which they could not divine, and were not especially bothering
about. And it was evening, and to this side and to that side the men
and women of Philistia were dining. Everywhere maids were passing hot
dishes, and forks were being thrust into these dishes, and each was
eating according to his ability and condition. No matter how
poverty-stricken the household, the housewife was serving her poor
best to the goodman. For with luncheon so long past, all the really
virile men of Philistia were famished, and stood ready to eat the
moment, they had a dish uncovered.

So it befell that Horvendile encountered a representative citizen, who
was coming out of a representative restaurant with a representative
wife.

And the sight of this representative citizen was to Horvendile a tonic
joy and a warming of the heart. For this man, and each of the
thousands like him, as Horvendile reflected, had been within this hour