Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/72

The Club of Queer Trades standing out of his head, and he was paying no attention to me. He was staring over the side of the tram.

"What is the matter?" I asked, peering over also.

"It is very odd," said Grant, at last, grimly, "that I should have been caught out like this at the very moment of my optimism. I said all these people were good, and there is the wickedest man in London."

"Where?" I asked, leaning over further, "where?"

"Oh, I was right enough," he went on, in that strange, continuous, and sleepy tone which always angered his hearers at acute moments—"I was right enough when I said all these people were good. They are heroes; they are saints. Now and then they may, perhaps, steal a spoon or two; they may beat a wife or two with the poker. But they are saints all the same; they are angels; they are robed in white; they are clad with wings and halos—at any rate compared to that man.

"Which man?" I cried again, and then 58