THE KILLING OF MARMION 



to be a woman of affairs. She sent for me last 

 week; said she had a stitch in her side would 

 I drop in between twelve and one. Her lunch 

 time was the only opportunity she could spare 

 me. I haven t time to be sick, she wrote me; 

 I ve got to preside at the meeting to-morrow, 

 and my time is all laid out for next week. It 

 was three days before I called, for I had some 

 thing more important than a stitch in the side to 

 look after. But she was a woman of neatness and 

 despatch. When I got there, she was laid out. 

 It turned out to be a pleuratic stitch, and the 

 flowers were coming in as I arrived. This uni 

 verse of ours is constructed on the stop-over plan, 

 and there is no use in kicking against it. This 

 through-train business doesn t at all agree with 

 the tropical swing of things, which provides clois 

 ters and still nights for forgetting. By Jove, old 

 fellow, there wouldn t have been any Renaissance 

 if there hadn t been Dark Ages first, and there 

 wouldn t have been any Pilgrim s Progress if 

 somebody hadn t impounded Bunyan. I have 

 never read it, but I understand it s a great work. 

 Go to, every man can be his own Buddha, inas 

 much as he has a Bo-tree in his soul if he will 

 only sit down under it at times and be mum and 

 get acquainted with himself.&quot; 



The only scent of the city in this philosophy 

 was sceptic and mortuary, and there were times 

 when I would have given a good deal for a sniff 

 of an ailantus tree or a whiff of consomme. But 

 all the same, the regimen of isolation was working 



33 



