And if you are quick in the uptake and a bit imaginative, you'll learn a lot, oh, the hell of a lot! You'll learn their language, the language of their minds, I mean. And you'll see 'us' looking mighty different from what we look like to ourselves."

When I asked Victor what it was that he had been doing, that was a passport to that other world, he looked at me hard and long, and said, "I mustn't tell you."

It soon became clear that he was giving more and more of his time and his thought to his exploration of the "other world ", and that he was over-straining himself. I saw very little of him. It was as though he were in a desperate hurry to finish some task before it was too late. Long afterwards, on his wedding day, he told me that at this time he was expecting to 'die' at any minute, to slip back irrevocably into his normal sluggish state. He never knew whether, if he allowed himself to sleep at night, he would wake up in the morning as himself or the hated other. He was therefore desperately anxious to make the fullest possible use of his remaining days or hours, or minutes. Whether through the soporific influence of his recentdisappointing sexual adventures, or through the actual strain of his new social exploration itself, he was becoming subject to frequent lapses into a state of drowsiness in which, though he was still (he said) at heart his awakened self, histhoughts wandered and the desires and purposes of the awakened self lost something of their power. In fact he was a little red; and yet outraged by his own boredom. Sometimes, too, he caught himself secretly fingering and even relishing memories of his own unregenerate past. Occasionally he even made cautious advances to the more human of his former friends.

For days at a time he would not come near me. If I sought him out, I was generally received with a show of friendliness, but somehow conversation flagged. None of the subjects which we usually discussed with such zest seemed to have any significance for him. Often I suspected that he had simply forgotten nearly everything connected with our previous talk. I was shocked and bewildered by his lack of intelligent grasp of the very problems which formerly his keen wit had illuminated for me. Sometimes even superficial friendliness was allowed to lapse. He would even speak with an affected "Oxford drawl", to shame my North Country accent. In fact he would use every means short of slamming the door in my face to make it clear that I was not wanted. Yet, strangely, no sooner did he see that I was leaving than he blurted out apologies, and excused himself on the plea of "feeling rotten", or "having a thick head", or "being quite unfit for decent people to talk to today". It was obvious that something queer had happened to him; but I never suspected that the Victor who rebuffed me was a distinct personality struggling to oust the Victor who was my friend.

One incident is worth recording. I went round to Victor's rooms to return a book which he had left with me on the previous evening. I found to my surprise that he had with him two of his former friends, Biglands, prominent as a speaker in Union debates, and Moulton, a minor aristocrat. All three were a bit sozzled. They were sitting round the table, from which the cloth had been removed, playing a childish game with pellets of bread. A whole loaf had been disembowelled to provide the material for the dozens of bread-pills with which the game was being played. The three of them were frantically blowing pellets across the smooth table at one another. I was so surprised that I stood in the doorway silent. Victor's face, red from much blowing, was itself a playing-board where conflicting emotions struggled for mastery. Presently he said, "Come in, Tomlinson, old man. We want a fourth player.