"'You are certainly an improvement upon both of them,' I said.
"He laughed a sunny laugh, with just the shadow of sadness dashed across
it. 'Do you know my idea of Heaven?' he said.
"'No,' I replied, somewhat surprised at the question.
"'Ludgate Circus,' was the answer. 'The only really satisfying moments
of my life,' he said, 'have been passed in the neighbourhood of Ludgate
Circus. I leave Piccadilly an unhealthy, unwholesome prig. At Charing
Cross I begin to feel my blood stir in my veins. From Ludgate Circus to
Cheapside I am a human thing with human feeling throbbing in my heart,
and human thought throbbing in my brain--with fancies, sympathies, and
hopes. At the Bank my mind becomes a blank. As I walk on, my senses
grow coarse and blunted; and by the time I reach Whitechapel I am a poor
little uncivilised cad. On the return journey it is the same thing
reversed.'
"'Why not live in Ludgate Circus,' I said, 'and be always as you are
now?'
"'Because,' he answered, 'man is a pendulum, and must travel his arc.'
"'My dear Mac,' said he, laying his hand upon my shoulder, 'there is only
one good thing about me, and that is a moral. Man is as God made him:
don't be so sure that you can take him to pieces and improve him. All my
life I have sought to make myself an unnaturally superior person.
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