. . . . .

I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town
nearer than Chichester at which it was even remotely probable
that there would be such a thing as an artist's colourman.
And yet, without white, my absurd little pictures would be as
pointless as the world would be if there were no good people in it.
I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients.
Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and again,
so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a
man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass.
Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some
salt water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on
an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made
entirely out of white chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until
it met the sky. I stooped and broke a piece off the rock I sat on;
it did not mark so well as the shop chalks do; but it gave the
effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, realising that
this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a tradition
and a civilisation; it is something even more admirable. It is a
piece of chalk.


III

The Secret of a Train

All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a
loose memory. I will not merely say that this story is true:
because, as you will soon see, it is all truth and no story.