Now, please confess, my friend, that you know me for a tolerant man — a man who keeps his own counsel, who dares not presume to impose his will on others. For who am I — frail embodiment of untold debilitating appetites and predilections — to judge my fellows against some bloodless standard that invariably gives rise to unhappiness in all who attempt to meet it?

But I tell you, this . . . this . . . I suppose I must say this man — although as I gazed at his intransigent figure, he became for me more like some living aspect of unbending, uncompromising mulishness — this man radiated such perverse self-will that he instigated in me (and in all around him, as well, I am certain) the seeds of dislike that grew geometrically with each turn of the carriage’s wheels.

By the time we had progressed one stop, two stops, three stops, I felt that I knew all that there was to know about the essence of such a creature. Yes, his most inward secret wants and needs were divulged quite blatantly to all who chose to see and to interpret. Had no one ever taught him that ever-lovely quality of moderation, esteemed in young and old, high and low alike? Or had he refused to heed his instructors’ lessons?

Oh, that would be just like him to ignore the good and trustworthy advice of his educated betters. And those teachers also surely would have attempted to pass on a few useful scientific truths — for instance, the simple physics that determines the quintessential pose for best absorbing the random shocks and jolts that lay siege to those who ride the underground rails.

Yes, physics! You will nod, my friend, as you read these practical lines about natural philosophy and the material world. Why, it is common knowledge that the train traveler who stands must direct his face toward the car’s windows, that the feet must be positioned with toes slightly outward, that the knees must be relaxed — at the ready to bend here, there, wherever and whenever they are required to receive without recoil the excess energy of a body thrusting through space.

But to lock oneself as though restrained by iron chains and shackles in a foolhardy and misguided attempt to become a tempered steel appendage welded to an equally immovable surface — why, it was the height of imbecility.

Surely, the creature who did so was proclaiming to the world’s people that all their moral ambiguities were by his fiat to be settled by a toss of a coin. Without a doubt, his rigid posture declared that life was an antiseptic series of choices that were merely black-and-white, all-or-nothing: yes or no, up or down, in or out, good or bad.

“Oh, yes: Be like me!” his stance shouted. “Watch me! Learn from me! Yes, I have the answers, I have the solutions: I, I, I. And do not doubt me. No, do not doubt or question — or my black rubber soles will teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget.”

Well, dear companion of my youth, I cannot explain how it happened. Some things in life are mysteries.

But my walking stick — yes, the rod of mountain ash that my father before me carried and that has been well worn from its years of daily service — slipped from my ink-stained grasp and to the floor, by chance falling and hitting the creature’s black-covered Achilles tendon, which lay exposed above the rear foot’s heel. And as I rose hurriedly to retrieve my cane — my mouth forming the beginnings of an apology — I became aware that this breach of the creature’s fortress-like defenses had gone unnoticed.

Yes, it is astonishing and yet a fact, nevertheless. If you can suspend your disbelief for a moment, I ask you to ponder this: Could my inadvertent assault on this sensitive area of the body truly not have discomfited my co-traveler?

This lack of reaction gave me pause. My thoughts began to race in a new direction as I considered the possibility that the stiff-necked statue that stood planted before me had coerced even his nervous system into obeying his uncompromising will.

Did he truly not feel? Had he so perfected his calcification that no human touch could be processed by his nerves — by his now petrified axons and dendrites?

You must agree, my friend, that this turn of events presented me with a dilemma. And as a seeker of truth — it is true! all who know me say it is so! — I found myself intrigued despite my growing exasperation. What would it take, I wondered, to penetrate this creature’s pigheadedness?

A new thought occurred to me: He could not — he surely would not dare attempt to intimidate me with his outlandish principles, would he? For I could not allow myself to be bullied by such a — a — tyrant!

And so I had to know, and would not rest until I did know, whether this obstinate, black-garbed mule hovering above me presumed that he could instruct me — me, the possessor of a master’s certificate and two philosopher’s diplomas from the nation’s finest educational institutions, not to mention the author of innumerable published commentaries and letters of opinion! — on the fine art of physical, mental, and spiritual balance.