*    *    *    *    *

Mr. Megg's point, the main plank, as it were, in his suicidal platform, was that with him
it was beside the question whether or not it was nobler to suffer in the mind. The mind
hardly entered into it at all. What he had to decide was whether it was worth while
putting up any longer with the infernal pain in his stomach. For Mr. Meggs was a
martyr to indigestion. As he was also devoted to the pleasures of the table, life had
become for him on long battle, in which, whatever happened, he always got the worst of it.

*    *    *    *    *

One moment, all appeared to be peace and joy; the next, a lively and irritable wild-cat
with red-hot claws seemed to somehow to have introduced itself into his interior.

*    *    *    *    *

Miss Pillenger was a wary spinster of austere views, uncertain age, and a deep-rooted
suspicion of men - a suspicion which, to do an abused sex justice, they had done nothing
to foster. Men had always been almost coldly correct in their dealings with Miss Pillenger.
In her twenty years of experience as a typist and secretary she had never had to refuse
with scorn and indignation so much as a box of chocolates from any of her employers.
Nevertheless, she continued to be icily on her guard. The clenched fist of her dignity
was always drawn back, ready to swing on the first male who dared to step beyond the
bounds of professional civility.

*    *    *    *    *

For Mr. Megg's home-town was no City of Pleasure...The only young men in the place
were silent, gaping youths, at whom lunacy commissioners looked sharply and suspiciously
when they met...The only form of dance extant - and that only at the rarest intervals -
was a sort of polka not unlike the movements of a slightly inebriated boxing kangaroo.
Mr. Megg's secretaries and typists gave the town one startled, horrified glance, and
stampeded for London like frightened ponies.

*    *    *    *    *

Mr. Megg's went on smiling. You cannot classify smiles. Nothing lends itself
so much to a variety of interpretations as a smile. Mr. Meggs thought he was
smiling the sad, tender smile of a man who, knowing himself to be on the brink
of the tomb, bids farewell to a faithful employee. Miss Pillenger's view was that
he was smiling like an abandoned old rip who ought to be ashamed of himself.

*    *    *    *    *