But the quaint fact of its brief duration is worth the attention of a contemplative mind.
It is in order perfectly to focus this attention that I have come to Murglebed-on-Sea.

Here I am alone with the murk and the mud and my own indrawn breath of life.

There are no flowers, blue sky, smiling eyes, and dainty faces--none of the adventitious distractions of the earth.

There are no Blue-books.

Before the Faculty made 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.