None of his friends were prepared for the sudden change in him. And yet there was no doubt that he had completely changed, almost beyond recognition. His cynical temper had gone, his overbearing manner had disappeared, his repellent selfishness had vanished. He had become gentle, courteous, self-effacing. The amazing thing about it was that it had happened suddenly.

In fact we did not realise all at once what had happened. It dawned upon us gradually. And then we saw that the change itself had not been gradual, but only our perception of it. We were expecting the old sneering tone, the usual hard, cold, unsympathetic selfishness, and we were unprepared for the transformation. We refrained from making any remark about it in his hearing lest he should feel ashamed and return to his former unpleasant manner.

One evening, however, some of us at the Century Club were discussing the subject of dreams and their connection with the subliminal consciousness, when he strolled in. I was surprised to see him there, for he was an unsociable fellow and I had forgotten that he was a member of the Club. He wandered up to where we were sitting and overheard part of our conversation. Presently he remarked, in a tone which none of us could possibly have resented :

‘You are on the right track, but evidently you are not speaking from your own experience. Your theory of subconscious states is merely an hypothesis framed by psychologists to account for certain psychical phenomena.