started out on it, not thinking of what he was doing. So the only thing
he could do for Myrtie was give her a reason for going to the cemetery.
She _wanted_ him in the cemetery--so she'd have some place to go on
Sunday afternoons! She could wear black then--_all_ black, not just a
ribbon round her neck. Suddenly he stood still. Would she _have_ any
black to wear? He had thought of a joke before which all other jokes he
had ever thought of were small and sick. Suppose he were to take himself
out of the way and then they didn't _get_ the things they thought they'd
have in place of him? He walked on fast--fast and crafty, picking his
way among the smaller stones in between the giant stones in a fast, sure
way he never could have picked it had he been thinking of where he went.
He went along like a cat who is going to get a mouse. And in him grew
this giant joke. Who'd _give_ them the fireless cooker? Would it come
into anybody's head to give young Joe Doane a sail-boat just because his
father was dead? They'd rather have a goat than a father. But suppose
they were to lose the father and _get_ no goat? Myrtie'd be a mourner
without any mourning. She'd be _ashamed_ to go to the cemetery.

He laughed so that he found himself down, sitting down on one of the
smaller rocks between the giant rocks, on the side away from town,
looking out to sea.

He forgot his joke and knew that he wanted to return to the sea. Doanes
belonged at sea. Ashore things struck you funny--then, after they'd once
got to you, hurt. He thought about how he used to come round this Point
when Myrtie was a baby. As he passed this very spot and saw the town
lying there in the sun he'd think about her, and how he'd see her now,
and how she'd kick and crow. But now Myrtie wanted to go and visit
him--_in the cemetery_. Oh, it was a joke all right. But he guessed he
was tired of jokes. Except the one _great_ joke--joke that seemed to
slap the whole of life right smack in the face.

The tide was coming in. In--Out--Doanes and Doanes. In--Out--Him too.
In--Out--He was getting wet. He'd have to move up higher. But--_why
move?_ Perhaps this was as near as he could come to getting back to sea.
Caught in the breakwater. That was about it--wasn't it? Rocks were queer
things. You could wedge yourself in where you couldn't get yourself out.
He hardly had to move. If he'd picked a place he couldn't have picked a
better one. Wedge himself in--tide almost in now--too hard t