He perceived that the odd position of this last
object had attracted my notice.
"Vanity and I have parted company," he explained; "I shrink from myself
when I look at myself now. The ugliest man living--if he has got his
hearing--is a more agreeable man in society than I am. Does this wretched
place disgust you?"
He pushed a pencil and some sheets of writing-paper across the table to
me. I wrote my reply: "The place makes me sorry for you."
He shook his head. "Your sympathy is thrown away on me. A man who has
lost his social relations with his fellow-creatures doesn't care how he
lodges or where he lives. When he has found solitude, he has found all he
wants for the rest of his days. Shall we introduce ourselves? It won't be
easy for me to set the example."
I used the pencil again: "Why not?"
"Because you will expect me to give you my name. I can't do it. I have
ceased to bear my family name; and, being out of society, what need have
I for an assumed name? As for my Christian name, it's so detestably ugly
that I hate the sight and sound of it. Here, they know me as The Lodger.
Will you have that? or will you have an appropriate nick-name? I come of
a mixed breed; and I'm likely, after what has happened to me, to turn out
a worthless fellow. Call me The Cur. Oh, you needn't start! that's as
accurate a description of me as any other. What's _your_ name?"
I wrote it for him.
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