Page:Et Cetera, a Collector's Scrap-Book (1924).djvu/36

 the clearer it becomes to me that you are here to do our bidding.

D. V. [evasively]: I hope I can see a joke even when it is at my expense.

Philip: If you weren’t so sordidly ugly. You weren’t always like that, you know.

D. V.: Really, Mr. Oldcastle.

Philip: You used to ride in armour on a fiery horse and slay with a flaming sword. Now, didn’t you?

D. V.: Upon my word I never did. I have always been just the same.

Philip: Ah, I thought as much. Death, you’re a fraud!

D. V.: I solemnly declare—

Philip: Shut up, and listen while I make my phrases. You’re a fraud because you are not beautiful. You’re a fraud because you are not logical. How can you pretend to finish the life of a man like me, with all my fine hopes and discovered dreams? Æsthetic considerations alone would convince me of my immortality when confronted by such a death as you. It is impossible that I have fared so far to be strangled by a bandit with the manners of a jobbing dentist?

D. V.: This regrettable violence of tone

Philip: The jargon! The jargon! Oh, I believe you now when you say that your name is Death. I have seen your sordid pageants in the street, your