He was not in the least sorry for what had
happened. On the contrary, he found himself wishing that the day's
respite had not been granted to him, and that his departure from the
place of his employment was final. He was very much in the position of
a man who has been transferred without warning or notice from the
streets of London to the streets of Pekin. Every object which he saw he
looked upon with different eyes. Every face which he passed produced a
different impression upon him. He looked about him with all the avidity
of one suddenly conscious of a great store of unused impressions. It
was like a second birth. He neither understood the situation nor
attempted to analyze it. He was simply conscious of a most delightful
and inexplicable light-heartedness, and of a host of sensations which
seemed to produce at every moment some new pleasure. His first and most
pressing anxiety was a singular one. He loathed himself from head to
foot. He shuddered as he passed the shop-windows for fear he should see
his own reflection. He made his way unfalteringly to an outfitter's
shop, and from there, with a bundle under his arm, to the baths. It was
a very different Alfred Burton indeed who, an hour or two later, issued
forth into the streets.
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