JE NE PARLE PAS FRANÇAIS

I DO NOT KNOW WHY I have such a fancy for this little café. It’s dirty and sad, sad. It’s not as if it had anything to distinguish it from a hundred others—it hasn’t; or as if the same strange types came here every day, whom one could watch from one’s corner and recognise and more or less (with a strong accent on the less) get the hang of.

But pray don’t imagine that those brackets are a confession of my humility before the mystery of the human soul. Not at all; I don’t believe in the human soul. I never have. I believe that people are like portmanteaux—packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle. . . .

Not but what these portmanteaux can be very fascinating. Oh, but very! I see myself standing in front of them, don’t you know, like a Customs official.

“Have you anything to declare? Any wines, spirits, cigars, perfumes, silks?”

And the moment of hesitation as to whether I am going to be fooled just before I chalk that squi