Part 2

“You don’t. You never have been. It’s all nonsense. There isn’t a way. To-night for instance—”

“Oh! to-night! Let me see. Ah! I just glanced at my watch, saw that I had already been out just three minutes over the precise half-hour, decided there was not time to go round, turned—”

“You always do.”

He looked at me—reflected. “Perhaps I do, now I come to think of it. But what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

“Why, this!”

“This?”

“Yes. Why do you do it? Every night you come making a noise—”

“Making a noise?”

“Like this.” I imitated his buzzing noise. He looked at me, and it was evident the buzzing awakened distaste. “Do I do that?” he asked.

“Every blessed evening.”

“I had no idea.”

He stopped dead. He regarded me gravely. “Can it be,” he said, “that I have formed a Habit?”

“Well, it looks like it. Doesn’t it?”

He pulled down his lower lip between finger and thumb. He regarded a puddle at his feet.

“My mind is much occupied,” he said. “And you want to know why! Well, sir, I can assure you that not only do I not know why I do these things, but I did not even know I did them. Come to think, it is just as you say; I never have been beyond that field.... And these things annoy you?”

For some reason I was beginning to relent towards him. “Not annoy,” I said. “But—imagine yourself writing a play!”

“I couldn’t.”

“Well, anything that needs concentration.”

“Ah!” he said, “of course,” and meditated. His expression became so eloquent of distress, that I relented still more. After all, there is a touch of aggression in demanding of a man you don’t know why he hums on a public footpath.

“You see,” he said weakly, “it’s a habit.”

“Oh, I recognise that.”

“I must stop it.”

“But not if it puts you out. After all, I had no business—it’s something of a liberty.”

“Not at all, sir,” he said, “not at all. I am greatly indebted to you. I should guard myself against these things. In future I will. Could I trouble you—once again? That noise?”

“Something like this,” I said. “Zuzzoo, zuzzoo. But really, you know—”

“I am greatly obliged to you. In fact, I know I am getting absurdly absent-minded. You are quite justified, sir—perfectly justified. Indeed, I am indebted to you. The thing shall end. And now, sir, I have already brought you farther than I should have done.”

“I do hope my impertinence—”

“Not at all, sir, not at all.”