ase upon the midnight without pain," in
the middle of a dynamite explosion. I want, as it were, to return to
the dust from which I came in one big bang! And if I must have a
Christian burial, then I hope that all of me which remains for my more
or less sorrowing relatives to bury, decently and in order, will, at
most, be one--old boot! Of course, if I do die in the middle of an
explosion, I grant that, if the resurrection of the body really be a
fact, then I shall find it extremely tiresome to hunt everywhere for my
spare parts. It will be such a colossal bore having to worry all the
other people, also busy collecting themselves, who went up with me in
the "bang," by keeping on demanding of them the information, "Excuse
me, but have you by any chance seen anything of a big-toe nail knocking
about?" I always feel so sorry for those Egyptian princesses whose
teeth and hair, whose jewels and old bones, proved such an irresistible
attraction to the New Zealand and Australian soldiers when they were in
camp near Cairo, that they stole out at night to rob their tombs, and
sent the plunder thus obtained "way back home to the old shack" as
souvenirs of the Great War. It will be so perfectly aggravating for
these royal ladies to resurrect in a tomb which, in parenthesis, they
had purposely constructed to last them until the Day of Judgment--to
resurrect therein, only to discover that some of their necessary parts
are either in Auckland, or in Sydney, or in Melbourne, or, perhaps, in
all three cities. It will be but poor consolation to learn that the
rest of them may, perhaps, be discovered among the sands of the
desert--that is to say, if they scratch about long enough looking for
them. Personally, if I get the chance, I shall immediately go about
purloining other people's physical perfections, so that, when at last I
am ready for the next move onward, I shall consist of one part Hercules
and three-parts Owen Nares! I shall indeed look lovely, shan't I? In
the meanwhile, I realise that, physically speaking, I am far better
imagined than understood. Not that I am very much worse than the
average? on the other hand, I am certainly not much better--so who
would be the happier for gazing at my photograph? No, indeed, it
cannot be for their beauty that authors insert their own
photographs--sometimes, even, on the outside covers of their own books!
For what beauty they do possess has usually been lost somewhere on the
origi