I once had the pleasure of knowing a man who actually talked in private
life after the manner of these papers. His conversation consisted of
fragmentary statements about height and weight and depth and time and
population, and his conversation was a nightmare of dulness. During the
shortest pause he would ask whether his interlocutors were aware how
many tons of rust were scraped every year off the Menai Bridge, and how
many rival shops Mr. Whiteley had bought up since he opened his
business. The attitude of his acquaintances towards this inexhaustible
entertainer varied according to his presence or absence between
indifference and terror. It was frightful to think of a man's brain
being stocked with such inexpressibly profitless treasures. It was like
visiting some imposing British Museum and finding its galleries and
glass cases filled with specimens of London mud, of common mortar, of
broken walking-sticks and cheap tobacco. Years afterwards I discovered
that this intolerable prosaic bore had been, in fact, a poet. I learnt
that every item of this multitudinous information was totally and
unblushingly untrue, that for all I knew he had made it up as he went
along; that no tons of rust are scraped off the Menai Bridge, and that
the rival tradesmen and Mr.
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