of being dead next morning, before their threat of cutting off that
water or that gas could by any possibility be carried out, before
that judgment summons they are bragging about could be made
returnable, I might--I don't say I should--be amused, thinking how I
was going to dish them. The wife of a very wicked man visited him
one evening in prison, and found him enjoying a supper of toasted
cheese.

"How foolish of you, Edward," argued the fond lady, "to be eating
toasted cheese for supper. You know it always affects your liver.
All day long to-morrow you will be complaining."

"No, I shan't," interrupted Edward; "not so foolish as you think me.
They are going to hang me to-morrow--early."

There is a passage in Marcus Aurelius that used to puzzle me until I
hit upon the solution. A foot-note says the meaning is obscure.
Myself, I had gathered this before I read the foot-note. What it is
all about I defy any human being to explain. It might mean anything;
it might mean nothing. The majority of students incline to the
latter theory, though a minority maintain there is a meaning, if only
it could be discovered. My own conviction is that once in his life
Marcus Aurelius had a real good time. He came home feeling pleased
with himself without knowing quite why.

"I will write it down," he said to himself, "now, while it is fresh
in my mind."

It seemed to him the most wonderful thing that anybody had ever said.
Maybe he shed a tear or two, thinking of all the good he was doing,