13. He would say, “I was thinking o

13. He would say, “I was thinking of talking to Mr X and telling him that etc., etc.” One day my attention was arrested by some peculiarity of phraseology, or maybe it was the somewhat improbablecharacter of the remark, and I asked if he meant he had actually said whatever it was he told me. “Oh, no”, he replied, “I am just imagining it!” It then turned out that many conversations introduced by the phrase, “I was thinking of talking to “Mr X” or “Mrs Y” were imaginary conversations although not by any means all of them. I had mentioned then that it sounded as if no clear distinction was being made between the real and the imaginary, but at the time this featurehad not the importance that it was now about to assume.