CHAPTER I I met Renniker the other day at the club. He is a man who knows everything-from the method of trimming a puppys tail for a dog-show, without being disqualified, to the innermost workings of the mind of every European potentate. If I want information on any subject under heaven I ask Renniker. Can you tell me, said I, the most God-forsaken spot in England? Renniker, being in a flippant mood, mentioned a fashionable watering-place on the South Coast. I pleaded the seriousness of my question. What I want, said I, is a place compared to which Golgotha, Aceldama, the Dead Sea, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and the Bowery would be leafy bowers of uninterrupted delight. Then Murglebed-on-Sea is what youre looking for, said Renniker. Are you going there at once? At once, said I. Its November, said he, and a villainous November at that; so youll see Murglebed-on-Sea in the fine flower of its desolation. I thanked him, went home, and summoned my excellent man Rogers. Rogers, said I, I am going to the seaside. I heard that Murglebed is a nice quiet little spot. You will go down and inspect it for me and bring back a report. He went blithe and light-hearted, though he thought me insane; he returned with the air of a serving-man who, expecting to find a well-equipped pantry, had wandered into a charnel house. Its an awful place, sir. Its sixteen miles from a railway station. The shore is a mud flat. Theres no hotel, and the inhabitants are like cannibals. I start for Murglebed-on-Sea to-morrow, said I. Rogers started at me. His loose mouth quivered like that of a child preparing to cry. We cant possibly stay there, sir, he remonstrated. We are not going to try, I retorted. Im going by myself. His face brightened. Almost cheerfully he assured me that I should find nothing to eat in Murglebed. You can amuse yourself, said I, by sending me down a daily hamper of provisions. There isnt 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....