10
The Open Minds
It was now late in February, and the weather was so bleak and damp that one’s own fireside at night was more tempting than any outside engagement.
Sitting at dinner the night of the meeting, and listening to Mudge’s casual conversation as he served me (for I dined at home), I was tempted to let the Plain Speakers and the Open Minds go to Colney Hatch or the devil en masse, without my company. It seemed to me, looking at Mudge’s pale, expressionless face while he carelessly referred to some fabulous adventure of his with a mousmé, that the ways of the Plain Speakers were foolishness, and that if I tried to learn anything through them I was a fool too. I’m not sure whether it was a thought of the Mummy or of the red-haired girl that drove me out into the street that nigh
