If anyone were to surprise him by being indifferent, he would be morbidly chagrined, and try to revenge himself.
A year before, I had read an article of his in a review, written with an immense affectation of naive poetry, and psychology too.

He described the wreck of some steamer on the English coast, of which he had been the witness, and how he had seen the drowning people saved, and the dead bodies brought ashore.

All this rather long and verbose article was written solely with the object of self-display.

One seemed to read between the lines: "Concentrate yourselves on me.

Behold what I was like at those moments.