Read "The Postmaster of Market Deignton" by E. Phillips Oppenheim online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Back once more in London; once more a unit in this great wheel of humanity. After my weary months of contemplative idleness, the roar and excitement of the great city are like the scent of battle to a pensioned charger. I discover now what I have for long dimly suspected. I am pining to find myself once more in the press and struggle of men, to breathe once more the intellectual air of cultivated London. As I walked down Pall Mall and Regent Street a few minutes ago, I saw many faces I knew.
I have received one or two half-startled recognitions. A great physician tried to stop his carriage in St. James's; and I even heard my name shouted from a club window by a man who sought to stop me. But to all these things I have chosen to remain both deaf and blind. I am in no way disguised. I am Dr. Norman Scott, and I do not suppose that the inside of a couple of years has made a great difference in my appearance. But I have made up my mind that for the present I will neither claim nor acknowledge acquaintance with those who were of my former life. I will spare them all the trouble of making up their minds whether or no I am to receive notice at their hands. There shall be no cause for embarrassment on their part so far as I am concerned. One day I hope to walk these pavements a free man. Then I shall bear no ill-will to any man. Then all will be welcome who choose to come to me. I shall have no individual slights or looks or doubts to remember. It is much better so.