And the writer thought:
"But if those people at the tables are the Public, what is that waiter?
How if I was mistaken, and not they, but he were the real Public?" And
testing this thought, his mind began at once to range over all the people
he had lately seen. He thought of the Founder's Day dinner of a great
School, which he had attended the night before. "No," he mused, "I see
very little resemblance between the men at that dinner and the men in
this hall; still less between them and the waiter. How if they were the
real Public, and neither the waiter, nor these people here!" But no
sooner had he made this reflection, than he bethought him of a gathering
of workers whom he had watched two days ago. "Again," he mused, "I do
not recollect any resemblance at all between those workers and the men at
the dinner, and certainly they are not like any one here. What if those
workers are the real Public, not the men at the dinner, nor the waiter,
nor the people in this hall!" And thereupon his mind flew off again, and
this time rested on the figures of his own immediate circle of friends.
They seemed very different from the four real Publics whom he had as yet
discovered. "Yes," he considered, "when I come to think of it, my
associates painters, and writers, and critics, and all that kind of
person--do not seem to have anything to speak of in common with any of
these people.
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