As is the case with all those of a tenacious nature, he lacked any sense of the ridiculous; since winning the world championship he took himself for the most important man in the world, and the awareness that he had beaten all those bright, intellectual, brilliant orators and writers at their own game and, above all, the palpable fact that he earned more than they did, transformed his erstwhile diffidence into a cold pride, displayed for the most part crassly and in public.
