_Bill_ (_profoundly_). Food is good.
_The Oldest Uncle_ (_I forget how he got there_). Food is very good.
_Food_ (_mysteriously_). The food which you eat is good, but the food
which you do not eat is better.
_Methyl_ (_frightened_). What does she mean?
_Bill._ I do not know what she means.
_Food._ I do not know what I mean.
_The O. U._ I do not know what the author means.
_M._ Does anybody know what he means?
_Indigestion._ He does not mean anything.
_Bill._ Oh, oh! I wish he would mean something.
_Ind._ He is pulling your leg.
The next scene is The Lurch itself, a very horrible place, where we
see all the people who have been left in it wishing they could get out
of it; or at least we don’t see them because the whole place is full
of a dense fog; but they are there, groping about and contemplating
unutterably the opaque immensities of boredom. Their hands move visibly
through the vast gloom, plying the instruments of Destiny; most of them
knitting. You see, they are nearly all old maids. None of them can be
got out of The Lurch until those who left them in it remember them
and return. There are also, of course, large crowds of old men in all
stages of decay. Many of them are Colonels who have been left in The
Lurch by the Government and naturally there is no hope for them. It is
all extremely sad.
In low tones they do a little dialogue, like sheep bleating on the
Mountains of Eternity.
_The Oldest Old Maid._ Will he never come?
_The Oldest Old Maid But One._ He will never come.
_A Frightfully Old Man._ The fog is very foggy.
_The O. O. M._ It is difficult to see things in a fog.
_The O. O. M. B. O._ If he came I should not see him.
_An Awfully Old Colonel._ You are lucky.
_The O. O. M. B. O._ I am not lucky.
_The O. O. M._ She is not lucky.
_A. F. O. M._ There must be some mistake.
_An A. O. C._ You are not waiting for the Government. That is what I
meant.
_The O. O. M._ Oh, oh! He meant something.
_A. F. O. M._ There must be some mistake.
_The O. O. M. B. O._ Oh, oh! Somebody is coming.
_Bill_ and his party come in on all-fours. You cannot see them because
of the fog, but you can hear them coughing. It is terrible. There is a
scene of intense intensity while _Bill Tyl_ and _Methyl_ crawl about
trying to find the people they have come to find. _Bill_ keeps finding
the _Awfully Old Colonel_ by mistake, and this causes a great deal of
emotion. The one he is after is _The Oldest Old Maid But One_, and, as
she says nothing but “Oh, Oh, I cannot smell him,” instead of saying,
“Here I am, Bill,” it is very difficult to identify her.
But suddenly _Methyl_ remembers that in all her blameless life _she has
never left anyone in The Lurch_. (Wood-wind, _sotto voce_--and strings,
_vibrato_.) The rule is that anyone who comes down to The Lurch and
remembers things like that may rescue everyone who is in The Lurch at
the time.
This gives general satisfaction and the whole party sets off to the
top, Old Maids and all.
In the next scene we are back at The Place Which Is Neither Here Nor
There again, only now we have a splendid view of The Place of Ecstasy
and The Golden Sea. Also a little to the left we see the yawning chasms
of The Limbo (which is only one better than The Lurch).
The Place of Ecstacy is top-hole. Gleaming unspeakably in the
unimaginable radiance of the inconceivable light (80 watts), immense
columns of barley-sugar melt away into space, avenue by avenue, while
just below in The Golden Sea, which is entirely composed of the finest
golden syrup, wallow in a refined manner Those Who Have Arrived.
The travellers feast their eyes on this vision of bliss. And now
comes the terrible, Guiggolian thrill. There has been a good deal
of dialogue on the way up from The Lurch, and poor _Bill_ has been
brooding gloomily over the prospect of spending eternity in the same
company.
All the _Old Birds_ are standing in a Violet haze of ineffable gladness
on the brink, with joyous springs of orangeade bubbling at their feet
and castor sugar descending in showers all round, when _Bill_ has a
very naughty impulse, which I regret to say he makes no attempt to
resist.
He rushes the whole crowd of _Old Birds_ over into The Limbo. Then with
a great cry of joy he and _Methyl_ plunge into the _Golden Sea_.
_Food_ and _Indigestion_ are left behind--immutable, eternal....