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 matically seeking escapes from their troubles and outlets for their lusts. The crowd is still more incensed when an author who believes these things refuses to write about them seriously.

Recently, in a London music hall, I saw an act which enthralled me. The curtain rose to disclose a house in process of construction. Three workmen were on the job. They did not speak a word. They indicated the symbols by pantomime. Their every action was ridiculously futile, ending in disaster. If a carpenter ascended a scaffold, the scaffold broke, giving him a hard fall of ten feet and undoing all the labour accomplished by his comrades; when one of the fellows began to plaster, he presently dropped into the mixing vat. So it went on, and whenever a man met with an accident his predicament was ignored by his companions. He was forced to extricate himself. As the curtain descended, the house, far from being in a further state of construction, was nearly demolished. The audience characteristically shrieked with laughter at this act, but I, for the same reason that they laughed, was on the verge of tears. This performance seemed to me exactly like life as we live it.

Don't you find it rather absurd to write books about the futility of life? Campaspe demanded.

Gareth grinned. Not at all, he replied. I write my books to prove how futile life is in a vain effort to forget how futile it is!

Campaspe studied the novelist's face with more