"
Where, then, in this very commonplace young man, were hidden the
elements of the extraordinary actions and happenings I am about to
relate? Various theories offer; it is hard to decide. Doctors,
psychologists whom I have consulted, have given different opinions; but
upon one point they have all agreed--that I am not able to supply
enough information about his ancestry. And, in fact, I know hardly
anything about that.
This is not, either, because he was uncommunicative. As I say, he used
to talk a lot about his mother. But he did not really inspire enough
interest for anybody to take an interest in his affairs. He was there;
he was a pleasant enough fellow; but when he had gone you were finished
with him till the next time. If he did not look you up, it would never
occur to you to go and see him. And as to what became of him when he was
out of sight, or how he lived--all that, somehow, never troubled our
heads.
What illustrates this is that when he had a severe illness a few years
after I came to know him, so little impression did it make on anyone
that I cannot now say, and nobody else seems able to remember, what the
nature of the illness was. But I remember that he was very ill indeed;
and one day, meeting one of his fellow clerks in Cheapside, he told me
that Barber's death was only a question of hours.
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