because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing.
And the difference between us was very deep, because it
was a difference as to the object of the whole thing
called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect.
For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun
opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake,
opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened
my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it
again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment.
And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly
if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.

. . . . .

Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short
(for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions,
who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election
had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab
from the corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House
of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance.
Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper
is a discussion between us which still continues.

It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude
of detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab
on a few hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I
had to visit. I then got out and offered him more than his fare.
He looked at it, but not with the surly doubt and general
disposition to try it on which is not unknown among normal cabmen.
But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He looked at it