The face is familiar. The snow-white fringe of hair, the broad-tipped nose, the inimitable smile, with the corners of the mouth stretched wide as though fleeing panic-stricken from each other. The Malcolm Muggeridge who lounges comfortably in desert boots and work shirt has the outward look of that mass of electronic impulses the television talk-show hosts call “Muggeridge.” But the fleshly Muggeridge radiates warmth and friendship. He is a far more arresting presence than his electronic alter ego.
Here in Dallas, buckle of the Sunbelt, sits the genuine article, sipping debased American tea and talking of the end of the world, or at any rate the world as we know it. To talk in Dallas of such an outlandish event as the end of the world is no small feat. Whereas Detroit and Gotham, to say nothing of Manchester and Birmingham, may be rusting in the corrosive air of the postindustrial age, Dallas is on the boom. Its churches, too, by modern standards, are stuffed on Sundays.
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