For a moment I felt unutterably lonely.
It is this way with me.

When I have reached the very depths of any serious situation or tragic emotion, something within me seems at last to stop--how shall I describe it ?--and I rebound suddenly and see the world, as it were, double--see that my condition instead of being serious or tragic is in reality amusing--and I usually came out of it with an utterly absurd or whimsical idea.

It was so upon this occasion.
I think it was the image of my robust self as a wraith that did it.
"After all," I said aloud taking a firm hold on the good hard flesh of one of my legs, "this is positively David Grayson." I looked out again into that tide of faces--interesting, tired, passive, smiling, sad, but above all, preoccupied faces.
"No one," I thought, "seems to know that David Grayson has come to town." I had the sudden, almost irresistible notion of climbing up a step near me, holding up one hand, and crying out: "Here I am, my friends.

I am David Grayson.

I am real and solid and opaque; I have plenty of red blood running in my veins.