10 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



I know, because I've tried. 



Ever since Kenneth and I viewed those packed railway 

 sheds, and the inspector-in-charge told us that there 

 is a use for all the flotsam and jetsam of the world, I 

 have been trying to rid myself decently of hordes of 

 old prayer-books, heaps of them, cohorts of them. I 

 suppose everyone suffers more or less, only it is more 

 with me, from this glut of old prayer-books. Nobody in 

 England dreams of destroying a prayer-book. It is like 

 the feeling that Hindus have against killing the nilghai. 

 Once bought, the volume sets off blithely on an endless 

 journey down the ages — for even if disaster overtakes 

 it, or you spill a cup of tea over it, you merely put 

 it aside, pension it off as it were, and up it bobs again 

 in later years. Every death in one's family means a 

 further accumulation. And thus it is that dozens and 

 dozens of prayer-books are on my hands. Prayer- 

 books in every stage of decrepitude, prayer-books 

 churches don't want because they pray for people be- 

 yond praying for, or because the print is too small, or 

 too large, or something. 



Three times I made up a goodly parcel and left 

 them under railway carriage seats, ready to be made 

 useful by the confident-that-nothing-is-wasted-inspec- 

 tor, but they were always traced to me and graciously 

 returned. Some people bring these sort of things off, 

 but I can't. 



I heard a bride lately describing the miraculous 

 disappearance of her ivory prayer-book, " the gift of 

 the bridegroom," who evidently had not enough at 

 home. 



