Simon the Jester

ming a puppy's tail for a dog-show, without being disqualified, to the innermost workings of the m

d I, "the most God-for

a fashionable watering-place on the South Co

ha, Aceldama, the Dead Sea, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and

ou're looking for," said Rennike

ce," s

November at that; so you'll see Murglebed-

ome, and summoned my

that Murglebed is a nice quiet little spot. You will g

he returned with the air of a serving-man who, expecting to f

a railway station. The shore is a mud flat. There's

glebed-on-Sea to

ose mouth quivered like that

y stay there, sir

try," I retorted. "

fully he assured me that I should

id I, "by sending me down a

ven a church,"

hreys'. I believe they can supply one with eve

the next day I found mysel

na. There is a lowering, soap-suddy thing a mile away from the more or less dry land which local ignorance and superstition call the sea. The interim is mud-ooz

gined despair. There are no trees. The country is flat and barren. A dismal creek runs miles inland-an estuary fed by the River Murgle. A few battered cottages, a general shop, a

the villas, is a builder. What profits he can get from building in Murglebed, Heaven alone knows; but, as he mounts a bicycle in the morning and disappears for the rest of the day, I presume he careers o

owever, on account of the tongues and other sustenance sent by Rogers from Benoist, of which she consumes prodigious quantities. She wonders, as far as the power of wonder is given to her dull brain, what on earth I am doing here.

o knows my whereabouts, trembles for my reason. In the eyes of the excellent Rogers I am horn-mad. What my constituents would think did they see me taking the muddy air on a soggy afternoon, I have no conception. Dale keeps them at bay. He also b

here seemed a whimsical attraction in the idea of marrying a girl with a thousand virtues. Before me lay the pleasant prospect of reducing them-say, ten at a time-until I reached the limit at which life

's wife since infancy, thereby causing my heart to swell with noble pride. This unparalleled young person compelled me to take my engagement almost seriously. If I

ther six months. After that I shall have to do what wandering I yearn for through the medium of my ghost. There is a c

se. An operation, they tell me, would kill me on the spot. What it is called I cannot for the

ir insides, and I am not going to talk about mine, even to myself. Clearly, if it is only going to last me six months,

ade their jocular pronouncement I had been filling my head with statistics on pauper lunacy so as to please my constituency, in which the rate has increased alarmingly of late years. Perhaps that is why I found myself their representative in Parliament. I was to father a Bill on the subject next session. Now the labour wil

the prospect of an entertaining life, I regard my impending dissolution in the light of a grievance. But I am not afraid. I shall go

ill, I may be eumoiros, or a happy man, nevertheless. For he is a happy man who in his lifetime dealeth unto hims

a great deal to be eumoirous. What a thing to say: "I have achieved eumoiriety,"-n

be fairly easy; for no matter how excellently a man's soul may be inclined to the performance of a good action, in ninety cases out of a hundred he is driven away from it by dread of the consequences. Your moral teachers seldom think of this-that the consequences of a good action are often more disastrous than those of an evil one. But if a man is going to die, he can do good with impunity. He can si

e would have been sown Seeds of Regret, which would have blossomed eventually into Flowers of Despair. I should have gone about the world, a modern Admetus,

post, my hand to the ambient mud, "Renniker was wrong! You are not

beard who occupied the next post looked

ld make a joke-a short life and an eumoiry on

led. He was to

servation he would offer to fig

ble to strike a match in this wind, whether

pty," he

from my pou

, and, deliberately turning his back, on me, lounged off to another post on a remoter and less lunatic-ridden portion of the

ing it flourishes so exceedingly that I think it safe to transplant it in the alien soil of Q 3, The

sponsibilities of eumoiriety must be the encoura

about Rogers's morals. But about those of Dale Kynnersley I do. I care a great deal for his career and happiness. I have a notion that he is erring after strange goddesses and neglecting the little girl

ew I propose to jot down my experiences from time to time, so that when I am wandering, a pale shade by Acheron, young Dale Kynnersley may have not only documentary evidence wherewith to convince my friends and relations that my latter actions were not those of a lunatic, but also, at the same time, an up-to-date version of Jeremy Taylor's edifying though humour-lacking treatise on the act of dying, which I am sorely tem

the daily papers, he has a curious feline pounce on the salient facts of a political situation, and can thread the mazes of statistics with the certainty of a Hampton Court guide. His enthusiastic researches (on my behalf) into pauper lunacy are remarkable in one so young.

bed for ever; it has my beniso