He had certainly
helped us in a most difficult situation, and, as a gentleman, I could
not treat such a benefactor with suspicion without grave grounds.
Such also was the view of my Socialistic colleague, who (with all
his dreadful talk of arbitration) is a gentleman also. In fact,
he comes of the Staffordshire Percys, a branch of the old house
and has the black hair and pale, clear-cut face of the whole family.
I cannot but refer it to vanity that he should heighten his personal
advantages with black velvet or a red cross of considerable ostentation,
and certainly--but I digress.
"A fog was coming up the street, and that last lost lamp-post
faded behind us in a way that certainly depressed the mind.
The large man in front of us looked larger and larger in the haze.
He did not turn round, but he said with his huge back to us,
`All that talking's no good; we want a little practical Socialism.'
"`I quite agree,' said Percy; `but I always like to understand things
in theory before I put them into practice.'
"`Oh, you just leave that to me,' said the practical Socialist,
or whatever he was, with the most terrifying vagueness.
`I have a way with me. I'm a Permeator.'
"I could not imagine what he meant, but my companion laughed,
so I was sufficiently reassured to continue the unaccountable journey
for the present.
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