Yet
inasmuch as it is truly said that the body is in all things
subservient to the mind, and is led withersoever it is willed, and as
your engaging directions were scrupulously observed with undeviating
fidelity, it would be impertinently self-opinionated on this person's
part to imply that they failed to guide him to his destination. Thus,
for all ceremonial purposes, it is permissible conscientiously to
assume that he HAS been there."
"I am afraid that I must not have been sufficiently clear," said Sir
Philip. "Did you miss the train at King's Cross?"
"By no means," I replied firmly, pained inwardly that he should cast
the shadow of such narrow incompetence upon me. "Seeing this machine
on the point of setting forth on a journey, even as your overwhelming
sagacity had enabled you to predict would be the case, I embarked with
self-reliant confidence."
"Good lord!" murmured the person opposite, beginning to manifest an
excess of emotion for which I was quite unable to account. "Then you
have been in this train--your actual footsteps I mean, Mr. Kong; not
your ceremonial abstract subliminal ego--ever since?"
To this I replied that his words shone like the moon at midnight with
scintillating points of truth; adding, however, as the courtesies of
the occasion required, that I had been so impressed with the
many-sided brilliance of his conversation earlier in the day as to
render the flight of time practically unnoticed by me.
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