Strangers.

I saw S. as a little fair man with a walrous moustache, a bowler much too small for him and an ancient frock coat that he keeps buttoning and unbuttoning. D.B. saw him as a grave gentleman with big black whiskers. Anyhow, there he was at the end of a dark tunnel, either coming towards us or walking away…. That started us on a fascinating subject. There are the people in D.B.'s life I've never seen (very few) and the immense number in mine that he has only heard of. What did they look like to us? And then, before we meet anyone while they are still far too far off to be seen we begin to build an image…. how true is it? It's queer how well one gets to know this stranger; how often you've watched him before the other comes to take his place…. I can even imagine someone keeping their “first impression”—in spite of the other.