With the head-shaving, Daniel’s direct relevance to the leveé had ended. The Duke shifted his attention to others, whose roles it was to present him with shirt, wig, sword, &c. Each of these phases led to some chit-chat that was of essentially no interest to Daniel. Indeed, much of it was incomprehensible, because it was about people whom Daniel didn’t know, or whose identities he could only guess at, as the Duke was referring to them by their Christian names, or in even more oblique ways. Nevertheless, Daniel had the clear sense it would be bad form to excuse himself. He was offered a chair on account of his age, and accepted it. Time passed. His eye drifted to the newspaper.