Washington Square

The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond by G.K. Chesterton is about the strange and mercurial Mr. Pond, with whom all conversed and quarreled, and yet all were magnetized. Excerpt: "The curious and sometimes creepy effect which Mr. Pond produced upon me, despite his commonplace courtesy and dapper decorum, was possibly connected with some memories of childhood; and the vague verbal association of his name. He was a Government official who was an old friend of my father; and I fancy my infantile imagination had somehow mixed up the name of Mr. Pond with the pond in the garden."