A Somewhat Improbable Story

I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read
it through very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come
to the conclusion that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read
it through very carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet.
The image and the idea of it clung to me through a great part
of my boyhood; I may have dreamt it before I could talk; or told it
to myself before I could read; or read it before I could remember.
On the whole, however, I am certain that I did not read it,
for children have very clear memories about things like that;
and of the books which I was really fond I can still remember,
not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position
of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline
to the opinion that it happened to me before I was born.

. . . . .

At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages
of the atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me,
for the sake of argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch
restaurants in the City where men take their food so fast that it
has none of the quality of food, and take their half-hour's
vacation so fast that it has none of the qualities of leisure;
to hurry through one's leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions.
They all wore tall shiny hats as if they could not lose an instant
even to hang them on a peg, and they all had one eye a little off,
hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In short, they were the slaves
of the modern bondage, you could hear their fetters clanking.
Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest chain ever tied
to a man--it is called a watch-chain.

Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man
who almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue.
He was like all the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly
opposite to them in all manner. He wore a high shiny hat
and a long frock coat, but he wore them as such solemn things
were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if it were a mitre,
and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high priest.
He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed
(such was his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat
for doing so, and to apologise to the peg for making use of it.
When he had sat down on a wooden chair with the air of one
considering its feelings and given a sort of slight stoop
or bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an altar,
I could not help some comment springing to my lips.
For the man was a big, sanguine-faced, prosperous-looking man,
and yet he treated everything with a care that almost
amounted to nervousness.

For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said,