What Theodore Racksole thought of
the moon can be recorded: he thought it was a nuisance. It
somehow fascinated his gaze with its silly stare, and so interfered
with his complex meditations. He glanced round at the
well-dressed and satisfied people - his guests, his customers. They
appeared to ignore him absolutely.
Probably only a very small percentage of them had the least idea
that this tall spare man, with the iron-grey hair and the thin, firm,
resolute face, who wore his American-cut evening clothes with
such careless ease, was the sole proprietor of the Grand Babylon,
and possibly the richest man in Europe. As has already been stated,
Racksole was not a celebrity in England.
The guests of the Grand Babylon saw merely a restless male
person, whose restlessness was rather a disturber of their quietude,
but with whom, to judge by his countenance, it would be
inadvisable to remonstrate. Therefore Theodore Racksole
continued his perambulations unchallenged, and kept saying to
himself, 'I must do something.' But what? He could think of no
course to pursue.
At last he walked straight through the hotel and out at the other
entrance, and so up the little unassuming side street into the
roaring torrent of the narrow and crowded Strand. He jumped on a
Putney bus, and paid his fair to Putney, fivepence, and then,
finding that the humble occupants of the vehicle stared at the
spectacle of a man in evening dress but without a dustcoat, he
jumped off again, oblivious of the fact that the conductor jerked a
thumb towards him and winked at the passengers as who should
say, 'There goes a lunatic.
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