There grew upon Inglewood an almost
creepy sense of the real childishness of this creature.
For Smith was really, so far as human psychology can be, innocent.
He had the sensualities of innocence: he loved the stickiness of gum,
and he cut white wood greedily as if he were cutting a cake.
To this man wine was not a doubtful thing to be defended or denounced;
it was a quaintly coloured syrup, such as a child sees in a shop window.
He talked dominantly and rushed the social situation;
but he was not asserting himself, like a superman in a modern play.
He was simply forgetting himself, like a little boy at a party.
He had somehow made the giant stride from babyhood to manhood,
and missed that crisis in youth when most of us grow old.
As he shunted his big bag, Arthur observed the initials
I. S. printed on one side of it, and remembered that Smith had
been called Innocent Smith at school, though whether as a formal
Christian name or a moral description he could not remember.
He was just about to venture another question, when there was a knock
at the door, and the short figure of Mr. Gould offered itself,
with the melancholy Moon, standing like his tall crooked shadow,
behind him.
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