He saw an assertive and altogether regal colleague take his shoes off before stepping into a temple, and then watched everything else that flowed from it transform him into a humble subservient devotee.  Even his body seemed to him to shrink to half its size as it bent and bowed and lay forehead down.  What stunned him, though, was the ease with which that body then reverted back to its princely-ness the moment they hit the street, as if his colleague had just risen from the dead.  Once a week, he explained, I get in the temple, get rid of the crap, and come out reborn — as quickly as possible:  I am a practical man.  In later years, it was this moment with his colleague that he pinpointed as when a wariness had first settled in him, that it took years more to recognize was of practical men.