he
central table with a snow-white cloth, laid the napkins upon it, and set
forth the simple meal with all the elegance of civilization, including an
electric torch lamp in the centre. Wonderful also was it to find that
our appetites were ravenous.

"It is the measure of our emotion," said Challenger with that air of
condescension with which he brought his scientific mind to the
explanation of humble facts. "We have gone through a great crisis. That
means molecular disturbance. That in turn means the need for repair.
Great sorrow or great joy should bring intense hunger--not abstinence
from food, as our novelists will have it."

"That's why the country folk have great feasts at funerals," I hazarded.

"Exactly. Our young friend has hit upon an excellent illustration. Let
me give you another slice of tongue."

"The same with savages," said Lord John, cutting away at the beef. "I've
seen them buryin' a chief up the Aruwimi River, and they ate a hippo that
must have weighed as much as a tribe. There are some of them down New
Guinea way that eat the late-lamented himself, just by way of a last tidy
up. Well, of all the funeral feasts on this earth, I suppose the one we
are takin' is the queerest."

"The strange thing is," said Mrs. Challenger, "that I find it impossible
to feel grief for those who are gone. There are my father and mother at
Bedford. I know that they are dead, and yet in this tremendous universal
tragedy I can feel no sharp sorrow for any individuals, even for them."

"And my old mother in her cottage in Ireland," said I. "I can see her in
my mind's eye, with her shawl and her lace cap, lying back with closed
eyes in the old high-backed chair near the window, her glasses and her
book beside her. Why should I mourn her? She has passed and I am
passing, and I may be nearer her in some other life than England is to
Ireland. Yet I grieve to think that that dear body is no more."

"As to the body," remarked Challenger, "we do not mourn over the parings
of our nails nor the cut locks of our hair, though they were once part of
ourselves. Neither does a one-legged man yearn sentimentally over his
missing member. The physical body has rather been a source of pain and
fatigue to us. It is the constant index of our limitations. Why then
should we worry about its detachment from our psychical selves?"

"If they can indeed be detached," Summerlee grumbled. "But, anyhow,
universal death is drea