human
?) above Upper Tooting. Norman would have known that the car was a London taxi had he ever been to London. The driver, smartly uniformed, stopped opposite him, and Arnolfo dressed in his invariable silk and gold stepped out, and bowed to Norman with a very ostensible deference.
gpt
I hope, Sir, he said suavely,
human
Why, how did you find me here? cried Norman.
gpt
You are as bewildering as the Cheshire cat.
human
It's not hard to find a suspicious fellow like you in a gossipy town like Alsander! laughed Arnolfo.
gpt
Some other day, moreover, you shall tell me who the Cheshire cat was; but jump in now; we have no time to lose.
human
I ought to hesitate,
gpt
We are going to continue playacting on the lines laid down by the Poet, said Arnolfo, as soon as they were ensconced in the car and being jolted softly and slowly over the atrocious roads.
human
But you must forsake the proletariat for the aristocracy, and therefore I am going to take you round the town after lunch and dress you up like a Jew on a racecourse. For your story is to be that you are a rich English nobleman (any eccentricity will be swallowed in Alsander if you say you are a rich English nobleman), but that you find that you have Alsandrian blood on your mother's side from the fifteenth century. You see, the story you must tell at present should be a suspicious and extraordinary one, as you are soon going to disavow it when you proclaim yourself King: nevertheless it ought not to be so foolish as to be instantly found out.