The Man Who Lost HimselfStacpoole, H. De Vere (Henry De Vere)
General
The Man Who Lost Himself
Stacpoole, H. De Vere (Henry De Vere)
Mistaken identity -- Fiction
A man does not as a rule commit suicide simply because he is eccentric
or because he has made a mess of his estates, or because being a
practical joker he suddenly finds his twin image to defraud. Rochester
had evidently done nothing to bar him from society. Though perhaps
coldly received by his club, he was still received by it. Had he done
something that society did not know of, something that might suddenly
obtrude itself?
Jones was brought back from his reverie with a snap. One of the
confounded waiters was making off with his half eaten ice.
"Hi," cried he. "What you doing? Bring that back."
His voice rang through the room, people turned to look. He mentally
cursed the ice and the creature who had snapped it from him, finished
it, devoured a wafer, and then, rising to his feet, left the room. It
was easier to leave than to come in, other men were leaving, and in the
general break up he felt less observed.
Downstairs he looked through glass doors into a room where men were
smoking, correct men in huge arm chairs, men with legs stretched out,
men smoking big cigars and talking politics no doubt. He wanted to
smoke, but he did not want to smoke in that place.
He went to the cloak room, fetched his hat and cane and gloves and left
the club.
Outside in Pall Mall he remembered that he had not told the waiter to
credit him with the luncheon, but a trifle like that did not bother him
now. They would be sure to put it down.
What did trouble him was the still unanswered question, "Why did that
guy commit suicide?"
Suppose Rochester had murdered some man and had committed suicide to
escape the consequences? This thought gave him a cold grue such as he
had never experienced before. For a moment he saw himself hauled before
a British Court of Justice; for a moment, and for the first time in his
life, he found himself wondering what a hangman might be like.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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