"Well, this is a very funny state of affairs," Mr. Wriford thought. "Except that I'm in a barn and shall get locked up for a tramp if I'm caught, or at least into a devil of a row with the farmer if he catches me, I'm dashed if I know where I am. I've stolen a ride on a wagon, and I've had a most extraordinary fight in the road with the chap who was driving it. My eyes were shut half the time. I wonder I wasn't killed. I must have got some fearful smashes. I suppose I didn't feel them--you don't when your blood's up. I belted him a few stiff 'uns, though; by gad, I did! I don't know how I had the pluck. I wonder what's the matter with me--I mean to say, me! fighting a chap like that. And then I kicked a policeman. Good Lord, you know--that's about the most appalling thing a man can do! Kicked him bang over--heels over head! By gad, he did go a buster, though!" And at recollection of the buster that the police sergeant went, Mr. Wriford began to laugh and laughed quietly for a good while. Then he began to think again. "I chucked myself into the river," Mr. Wriford thought. "I'd forgotten that. I've not thought about it since I did it. Good Lord, that was a thing to do! I didn't mean to. One moment I was walking along the Embankment, and the next I was falling in. I wonder what I did in between--how I got up, how I got in. I wanted to die. Yes, I tried to drown and die. I suppose I'm not dead? No, I can't possibly be dead. Everything's funny enough to be another world, but I take my oath I'm not dead. This chap Puddlebox--which can't possibly be his real name--thinks I'm mad. But I'm absolutely not mad. I may be dead--I know I'm not, though; at least I'm pretty sure I'm not--but I'm dashed if I'm mad. I've been too near madness--God knows--not to know it when I see it. Those sort of rushes-up in my head--I might have gone mad any time with one of those. Well, they're gone. I'll never have another; I feel absolutely sure of that. My head feels empty--feels as though it was a different part of me, like I've known my foot feel when it's gone to sleep and I can touch it without feeling it. Before, my head used to feel full, cram full. That's the only difference and that's not mad: it's just the reverse, if anything. What about seeing myself? Who am I then? I mean to say, am I the one I can see or the one I think I am? Well, the thing is, is there any one there when I see him or is it only imagination, only a delusion? If it's a delusion, then it's madness and I'm mad. Well, the very fact that I know that, proves it isn't a delusion and proves I'm absolutely sane; the very fact that I can lie here and argue about it and that I can't see it now because it isn't here, and can see it sometimes because it is there--that very fact proves I'm not mad. I think I know what it is. It's the same sort of thing as I remember once or twice years ago, when I first came to London and had a night out with some men