that this seemed to be the only thing he wished to talk about.  He described the house, the garden, the village, the neighbours; he described his mode of life, his parties, the things he said to other people, the visits he paid.  I became a mute listener.  Occasionally I assented or asked a question; but if I attempted to contribute to the conversation he became restive and bored; so I merely let him have his head, and he talked on.  I will confess that I derived a good deal of entertainment from my companion, for he was a shrewd and observant man.  I do not think I ever learnt so much about an entire stranger in so short a time.  I even knew what he had for breakfast and what he drank with his luncheon.  When we said goodbye at the station, he said that he had spent a very pleasant day, and I am sure it was the truth; he pressed me to visit him with much cordiality, and said that it had given him great pleasure to make my acquaintance; we bowed and smiled and waved our hands, and the train moved out of the station.

The surprising thing is that it never seemed to occur to him that he had not made my acquaintance at all.  He had seen my house, indeed, but every detail that he observed had suggested to him some superior detail in his own house.  He had certainly allowed me to make his acquaintance, but that had not been the professed object of his visit.  He could not have talked more obligingly if I had been an interviewer who had desired to write his biography.  I do not believe that it had ever crossed his mind that the occasion had been anything but a complete success.  His enjoyment was evidently to converse, and he had conversed unintermittently for several hours.  The man was an egoist, of course, but he had not talked exclusively about himself.  Much of his talk had been devoted to other people, but they were all of them the people whom he saw in his own private mirror.  I have no doubt that for the time being I was a figure in his dreams, and that I shall be described with the same minuteness to the unhappy recipients of his confidences who are now awaiting him at dinner,—­at which I may mention he always drinks whisky-and-seltzer.

I do not mean that every one is like this; but there are really a larger number of people in the world than I like to think whose delight it is not to perceive but to relate.  The odd thing is that my friend should think it necessary to preface his meeting with courteous formulas, which I suppose are really merely liturgical, like the Dominus vobiscum, relating to what a polite Frenchman the other day called votre presence et votre precieux concours.

It is really impossible to convey anything to such people; in fact, it is almost impossible to communicate with them at all.  “Never tell people how you are,” as a trenchant lady of my acquaintance said to me the other day; “they don’t want to know.”