CHAPTER XXI

         CHAPTER XXII

         CHAPTER XXIII

         CHAPTER XXIV

   I met Renniker the other day at the club. He is a man who knows everything—from the method of trimming a puppy's tail for a dog-show, without being disqualified, to the innermost workings of the mind of every European potentate. If I want information on any subject under heaven I ask Renniker.

   "Can you tell me," said I, "the most God-forsaken spot in England?"

   Renniker, being in a flippant mood, mentioned a fashionable watering-place on the South Coast. I pleaded the seriousness of my question.

   "What I want," said I, "is a place compared to which Golgotha, Aceldama, the Dead Sea, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and the Bowery would be leafy bowers of uninterrupted delight."

   "Then Murglebed-on-Sea is what you're looking for," said Renniker. "Are you going there at once?"

   "At once," said I.

   "It's November," said he, "and a villainous November at that; so you'll see Murglebed-on-Sea in the fine flower of its desolation."

   I thanked him, went home, and summoned my excellent man Rogers.

   "Rogers," said I, "I am going to the seaside. I heard that Murglebed is a nice quiet little spot. You will go down and inspect it for me and bring back a report."

   He went blithe and light-hearted, though he thought me insane; he returned with the air of a serving-man who, expecting to find a well-equipped pantry, had wandered into a charnel house.

   "It's an awful place, sir. It's sixteen miles from a railway station. The shore is a mud flat. There's no hotel, and the inhabitants are like cannibals."

   "I start for Murglebed-on-Sea to-morrow," said I.

   Rogers started at me. His loose mouth quivered like that of a child preparing to cry.

   "We can't possibly stay there, sir," he remonstrated.

 Prev. P 2/256 next