XXXV 



I HAVE solemnly sworn my family that when I die I am 

 not to be buried in a " Necropolis/' Horrible thought, a 

 " city " of the dead ! To hate the herd when living, and to 

 be forcibly associated with it till the Day of Judgment, if 

 not evicted to make room for fresh tenants ! 

 In the very early months of my marriage we were obliged 

 to take up our abode in a large northern town, for Loki's 

 future grandfather had to study certain aspects of news- 

 paper management. Never was anything more difficult to 

 find than a roof for our heads in that place of teeming 

 activities. Worn out with a long and fruitless search we 

 were at last landed in a higher quarter of the town at the 

 house of a dentist ! The dentist was going away for a holiday, 

 and was ready to put at our disposal, for a consideration, 

 the whole of the clean, fresh, quite unobjectionable little 

 abode, reserving only one roomhis chamber of horrors ! 

 I interviewed an elderly thin-faced lady, with, as became a 

 dentist's mother, a very handsome smile. She brought me 

 to the window. We looked down on waving tree-tops 

 and a wide space of green in the gathering dusk of the 

 September evening. 



" You see/' she said, " we have a most pleasant view/' 

 I gazed. That stretch of green silence and restfulness, 

 after all those sordid roaring streets, decided me. 

 " We will take the house ! " I cried, in a hurry lest we 

 should miss such a chance. 



" I always think," said the dentist's mother, smiling still 

 more broadly, " that it is a great advantage to be opposite 

 the Necropolis/' 



259 



