"You can amuse yourself," said I, "by sending me down a daily hamper of
provisions."

"There isn't even a church," he continued.

"Then you can send me down a tin one from Humphreys'. I believe they can
supply one with everything from a tin rabbit-hutch to a town hall."

He sighed and departed, and the next day I found myself here, in
Murglebed-on-Sea.

On a murky, sullen November day Murglebed exhibits unimagined horrors
of scenic depravity. It snarls at you malignantly. It is like a bit of
waste land in Gehenna. 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--oozy, brown, malevolent mud. Sometimes
it seems to heave as if with the myriad bodies of slimy crawling eels
and worms and snakes. A few foul boats lie buried in it.

Here and there, on land, a surly inhabitant spits into it. If you
address him he snorts at you unintelligibly. If you turn your back to
the sea you are met by a prospect of unimagined 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 couple of low public-houses, and three perky red-brick
villas all in a row form the city, or town, or village, or what you
will, of Murglebed-on-Sea. Renniker is a wonderful man.

I have rented a couple of furnished rooms in one of the villas. It has
a decayed bit of front garden in which a gnarled, stunted stick is