In this society, more than any other that ever
I was in, it was the narrator alone who seemed to enjoy the
narrative. It was rarely that any one listened for the listening.
If he lent an ear to another man's story, it was because he was in
immediate want of a hearer for one of his own. Food and the
progress of the train were the subjects most generally treated;
many joined to discuss these who otherwise would hold their
tongues. One small knot had no better occupation than to worm out
of me my name; and the more they tried, the more obstinately fixed
I grew to baffle them. They assailed me with artful questions and
insidious offers of correspondence in the future; but I was
perpetually on my guard, and parried their assaults with inward
laughter. I am sure Dubuque would have given me ten dollars for
the secret. He owed me far more, had he understood life, for thus
preserving him a lively interest throughout the journey. I met one
of my fellow-passengers months after, driving a street tramway car
in San Francisco; and, as the joke was now out of season, told him
my name without subterfuge. You never saw a man more chapfallen.
But had my name been Demogorgon, after so prolonged a mystery he
had still been disappointed.
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