[_Tyltyl._ “It seems hardly worth while, then, to take so much
trouble.”--_The Betrothal._]
I am afraid this little Guiggol has somehow got mixed up With M.
Maeterlinck; but the two schools have, of course, a good deal in
common, so it should work out fairly well.
The play opens in The Place Which is Neither Here nor There; it seems
to be a high hill entirely surrounded by fog. The unfortunate _Bill
Tyl_ and his sister _Methyl_[3] are doing their utmost to die, driven
on by the sinister figure of _Indigestion_, which grows larger and
larger as the play progresses. They meet with a good deal of opposition
in their simple project, and when the play begins they have already
been to the House of Uncles and The Abode of the Half-Baked for
permission to die; but they always find that before they can do it
they have to go to just _one_ more place for information and advice.
It is like walking up one of those tiresome mountains which never
seem to have a top; or it is like trying to find out which Government
Department is _really_ responsible; or it is like.... But enough.
[3] Who afterwards gave her name to the celebrated spirits.
_Bill_ and _Methyl_ have now been told that they cannot die until they
have gone down and rescued all the people who have been left in The
Lurch during their lives; so they are discovered standing on the hill
preparing to go down to The Lurch. _Indigestion_ endeavours to dissuade
them, saying that they had much better go down the other side of the
hill into The Limbo. But the seductive figure of _Food_ intervenes,
gorgeously dressed in aspic, and eventually prevails.