Robert Michael Ballantyne
Post Haste
“I quite understand,” interrupted Miss Gentle, with a smile. “We won’t talk of these details, please, until you have had a trial of me, and see whether I am worthy of a salary at all!”
“Miss Gentle,” returned Mr Blurt, with sudden gravity, “your extreme kindness emboldens me to put before you another matter of business, which I trust you will take into consideration in a purely business light.—I am getting old, madam.”
Miss Gentle acknowledged the truth with a slight bow.
“And you are—excuse me—not young, Miss Gentle.”
The lady acknowledged this truth with a slighter bow.
“You would not object to regard me in the light of a brother, would you?”
Mr Blurt took one of her hands in his, and looked at her earnestly.
Miss Gentle looked at Mr Blurt quite as earnestly, and replied that she had no objection whatever to that.
“Still further, Miss Gentle: if I were to presume to ask you to regard me in the light of a husband, would you object to that?”
Miss Gentle looked down and said nothing, from which Mr Blurt concluded that she did not object. She withdrew her hand suddenly, however, and blushed. There was a slight noise at the door. It was Jiggs, who, with an idiotical stare, asked if it was not time to put up the shutters!
The plan thus vexatiously interrupted was, however, ultimately carried into effect. Miss Gentle, regardless of poverty, the absence of prospects, and the certainty of domestic anxiety, agreed to wed Mr Enoch Blurt and nurse his brother. In consideration of the paucity of funds, and the pressing nature of the case, she also agreed to dispense with a regular honeymoon, and to content herself with, as it were, a honey-star at home.
Of course, the event knocked poor Phil’s little plans on the head for the time being, though it did not prevent his resolving to do his utmost to bring his mother to London.
Chapter Twenty Five.
Light Shining in Dark Places
Down by the river-side, in an out-of-the-way and unsavoury neighbourhood, George Aspel and Abel Bones went one evening into a small eating-house to have supper after a day of toil at the docks. It was a temperance establishment. They went to it, however, not because of its temperance but its cheapness. After dining they adjourned to a neighbouring public-house to drink.
Bones had not yet got rid of his remorse, nor had he entirely given up desiring to undo what he had done for Aspel. But he found the effort to do good more difficult than he had anticipated. The edifice pulled down so ruthlessly was not, he found, to be rebuilt in a day. It is true, the work of demolition had not been all his own. If Aspel had not been previously addicted to careless living, such a man as Bones never could have had the smallest chance of influencing him. But Bones did not care to reason deeply. He knew that he had desired and plotted the youth’s downfall, and that downfall had been accomplished. Having fallen from such a height, and being naturally so proud and self sufficient, Aspel was proportionally more difficult to move again in an upward direction.
Bones had tried once again to get him to go to the temperance public-house, and had succeeded. They had supped there once, and were more than pleased with the bright, cheerful aspect of the place, and its respectable and sober, yet jolly, frequenters. But the cup of coffee did not satisfy their depraved appetites. The struggle to overcome was too much for men of no principle. They were self-willed and reckless. Both said, “What’s the use of trying?” and returned to their old haunts.
On the night in question, after supping, as we have said, they entered a public-house to drink. It was filled with a noisy crew, as well as with tobacco-smoke and spirituous fumes. They sat down at a retired table and looked round.
“God help me,” muttered Aspel, in a low husky voice, “I’ve fallen very low!”
“Ay,” responded Bones, almost savagely, “very low.”
Aspel was too much depressed to regard the tone. The waiter stood beside them, expectant. “Two pints of beer,” said Bones,—“ginger-beer,” he added, quickly.
“Yessir.”
The waiter would have said “Yessir” to an order for two pints of prussic acid, if that had been an article in his line. It was all one to him, so long as it was paid for. Men and women might drink and die; they might come and go; they might go and not come—others would come if they didn’t,—but he would go on, like the brook, “for ever,” supplying the terrible demand.
As the ginger-beer was being poured out the door opened, and a man with a pack on his back entered. Setting down the pack, he wiped his heated brow and looked round. He was a mild, benignant-looking man, with a thin face.
Opening his box, he said in a loud voice to the assembled company, “Who will buy a Bible for sixpence?”
There was an immediate hush in the room. After a few seconds a half-drunk man, with a black eye, said— “We don’t want no Bibles ’ere. We’ve got plenty of ’em at ’ome. Bibles is only for Sundays.”
“Don’t people die on Mondays and Saturdays?” said the colporteur, for such he was. “It would be a bad job if we could only have the Bible on Sundays. God’s Word says, ‘To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.’ ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.’ ‘Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.’ It says the same on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and every day of the week.”
“That’s all right enough, old fellow,” said another man, “but a public is not the right place to bring a Bible into.”
Turning to this man the colporteur said quietly, “Does not death come into public-houses? Don’t people die in public-houses? Surely it is right to take the Word of God into any place where death comes, for ‘after death the judgment.’ ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’”
“Come, come, that’ll do. We don’t want none of that here,” said the landlord of the house.
“Very well, sir,” said the man respectfully, “but these gentlemen have not yet declined to hear me.”
This was true, and one of the men now came forward to look at the contents of the box. Another joined him.
“Have you any book that’ll teach a man how to get cured of drink?” asked one, who obviously stood greatly in need of such a book.
“Yes, I have. Here it is— The Author of the Sinner’s Friend; it is a memoir of the man who wrote a little book called The Sinner’s Friend,” said the colporteur, producing a thin booklet in paper cover, “but I’d recommend a Bible along with it, because the Bible tells of the sinner’s best friend, Jesus, and remember that without Him you can do nothing. He is God, and it is ‘God who giveth us the victory.’ You can’t do it by yourself, if you try ever so much.”
The man bought the booklet and a Testament. Before he left the place that colporteur had sold a fourpenny and a twopenny Testament, and several other religious works, beside distributing tracts gratuitously all round. (See Report of “The Christian Colportage Association for England,” 1879, page 12.)
“That’s what I call carryin’ the war into the enemy’s camp,” remarked one of the company, as the colporteur thanked them and went away.
“Come, let’s go,” said Aspel, rising abruptly and draining his glass of ginger-beer.
Bones followed his example. They went out and overtook the colporteur.
“Are there many men going about like you?” asked Aspel.
“A good many,” answered the colporteur. “We work upwards of sixty districts now. Last year we sold Bibles, Testaments, good books and periodicals, to the value of 6700 pounds, besides distributing more than 300,000 tracts, and speaking to many people the blessed Word of Life. It is true we have not yet done much in public-houses, but, as you saw just now, it is not an unhopeful field. That branch has been started only a short time ago, yet we have sold in public-houses above five hundred Bibles and Testaments, and over five thousand Christian books, besides distributing tracts.”
“It’s a queer sort o’ work,” said Bones. “Do you expect much good from it?”
The colporteur replied, with a look of enthusiasm, that he did expect much good, because much had already been done, and the promise of success was sure. He personally knew, and could name, sinners who had been converted to God through the instrumentality of colporteurs; men and women who had formerly lived solely for themselves had been brought to Jesus, and now lived for Him. Swearers had been changed to men of prayer and praise, and drunkards had become sober men—
“Through that little book, I suppose?” asked Bones quickly.
“Not altogether, but partly by means of it.”
“Have you another copy?” asked George Aspel.
The man at once produced the booklet, and Aspel purchased it.
“What do you mean,” he said, “by its being only ‘partly’ the means of saving men from drink?”
“I mean that there is no Saviour from sin of any kind but Jesus Christ. The remedy pointed out in that little book is, I am told, a good and effective one, but without the Spirit of God no man has power to persevere in the application of the remedy. He will get wearied of the continuous effort; he will not avoid temptation; he will lose heart in the battle unless he has a higher motive than his own deliverance to urge him on. Why, sirs, what would you expect from the soldier who, in battle, thought of nothing but himself and his own safety, his own deliverance from the dangers around him? Is it not those men who boldly face the enemy with the love of Queen and country and comrades and duty strong in their breasts, who are most likely to conquer? In the matter of drink the man who trusts to remedies alone will surely fail, because the disease is moral as well as physical. The physical remedy will not cure the soul’s disease, but the moral remedy—the acceptance of Jesus—will not only cure the soul, but will secure to us that spiritual influence which will enable us to ‘persevere to the end’ with the physical. Thus Jesus will save both soul and body—‘it is God who giveth us the victory.’”
They parted from the colporteur at this point.
“What think you of that?” asked Bones.
“It is strange, if true—but I don’t believe it,” replied Aspel.
“Well now, it appears to me,” rejoined Bones, “that the man seems pretty sure of what he believes, and very reasonable in what he says, but I don’t know enough about the subject to hold an opinion as to whether it’s true or false.”
It might have been well for Aspel if he had taken as modest a view of the matter as his companion, but he had been educated—that is to say, he had received an average elementary training at an ordinary school,—and on the strength of that, although he had never before given a serious thought to religion, and certainly nothing worthy of the name of study, he held himself competent to judge and to disbelieve!
While they walked towards the City, evening was spreading her grey mantle over the sky. The lamps had been lighted, and the enticing blaze from gin-palaces and beer-shops streamed frequently across their path.
At the corner of a narrow street they were arrested by the sound of music in quick time, and energetically sung.
“A penny gaff,” remarked Bones, referring to a low music-hall; “what d’ee say to go in?”
Aspel was so depressed just then that he welcomed any sort of excitement, and willingly went.
“What’s to pay?” he asked of the man at the door.
“Nothing; it’s free.”
“That’s liberal anyhow,” observed Bones, as they pushed in.
The room was crowded by people of the lowest order—men and women in tattered garments, and many of them with debauched looks. A tall thin man stood on the stage or platform. The singing ceased, and he advanced.
“Bah!” whispered Aspel, “it’s a prayer-meeting. Let’s be off.”
“Stay,” returned Bones. “I know the feller. He comes about our court sometimes. Let’s hear what he’s got to say.”
“Friends,” said Mr Sterling, the city missionary, for it was he, “I hold in my hand the Word of God. There are messages in this Word—this Bible—for every man and woman in this room. I shall deliver only two of these messages to-night. If any of you want more of ’em you may come back to-morrow. Only two to-night. The first is, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.’ The other is, ‘It is God who giveth us the victory.’”
Bones started and looked at his companion. It seemed as if the missionary had caught up and echoed the parting words of the colporteur.
Mr Sterling had a keen, earnest look, and a naturally eloquent as well as persuasive tongue. Though comparatively uneducated, he was deeply read in the Book which it was his life’s work to expound, and an undercurrent of intense feeling seemed to carry him along—and his hearers along with him—as he spoke. He did not shout or gesticulate: that made him all the more impressive. He did not speak of himself or his own feelings: that enabled his hearers to give undistracted attention to the message he had to deliver. He did not energise. On the contrary, it seemed as if he had some difficulty in restraining the superabundant energy that burned within him; and as people usually stand more or less in awe of that which they do not fully understand, they gave him credit, perhaps, for more power than he really possessed. At all events, not a sound was heard, save now and then a suppressed sob, as he preached Christ crucified to guilty sinners, and urged home the two “messages” with all the force of unstudied language, but well-considered and aptly put illustration and anecdote.
At one part of his discourse he spoke, with bated breath, of the unrepentant sinner’s awful danger, comparing it to the condition of a little child who should stand in a blazing house, with escape by the staircase cut off, and no one to deliver—a simile which brought instantly to Bones’s mind his little Tottie and the fire, and the rescue by the man he had resolved to ruin—ay, whom he had ruined, to all appearance.
“But there is a Deliverer in this case,” continued the preacher. “‘Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the lost;’ to pluck us all as brands from the burning; to save us from the fire of sin, of impurity, of drink! Oh, friends, will you not accept the Saviour—”
“Yes! yes!” shouted Bones, in an irresistible burst of feeling, “I do accept Him!”
Every eye was turned at once on the speaker, who stood looking fixedly upwards, as though unaware of the sensation he had created. The interruption, however, was only momentary.
“Thanks be to God!” said the preacher. “There is joy among the angels of heaven over one sinner that repenteth.”
Then, not wishing to allow attention to be diverted from his message, he continued his discourse with such fervour that the people soon forgot the interrupter, and Bones forgot them and himself and his friend, in contemplation of the “Great Salvation.”
When the meeting was over he hurried out into the open air. Aspel followed, but lost him in the crowd. After searching a few minutes without success, he returned to Archangel Court without him.
The proud youth was partly subdued, though not overcome. He had heard things that night which he had never heard before, as well as many things which, though heard before, had never made such an impression as then. Lighting the remnant of the candle in the pint-bottle, he pulled out the little book which he had purchased, and began to read, and ever as he read there seemed to start up the words, “It is God who giveth us the victory.” At last he came to the page on which the prescription for drunkards is printed in detail. He read it with much interest and some hope, though, of course, being ignorant of medicine, it conveyed no light to his mind.
“I’ll try it at all events,” he muttered in a somewhat desponding tone; “but I’ve tried before now to break off the accursed habit without success, and have my doubts of this, for—”
He paused, for the words, “It is God that giveth us the victory,” leaped again to his mind with tenfold power.
Just then there arose a noise of voices in the court. Presently the sound of many footsteps was heard in the passage. The shuffling feet stopped at the door, and some one knocked loudly.
With a strange foreboding at his heart, Aspel leaped up and opened it.
Four men entered, bearing a stretcher. They placed it gently on the low truckle-bed in the corner, and, removing the cover, revealed the mangled and bloody but still breathing form of Abel Bones.
“He seemed to be a bit unhinged in his mind,” said one of the men in reply to Aspel’s inquiring look—“was seen goin’ recklessly across the road, and got run over. We would ’ave took ’im to the hospital, but he preferred to be brought here.”
“All right. George,” said Bones in a low voice, “I’ll be better in a little. It was an accident. Send ’em away, an’ try if you can find my old girl and Tottie.—It is strange,” he continued faintly, as Aspel bent over him, “that the lady I wanted to rob set me free, for Tottie’s sake; and the boy I cast adrift in London risked his life for Tottie; and the man I tried to ruin saved her; and the man I have often cursed from my door has brought me at last to the Sinner’s Friend. Strange! very strange!”
Chapter Twenty Six.
Tells of a Sham Fight and a Real Battle
There are periods in the busy round of labour at the great heart in St. Martin’s-le-Grand when some members of the community cease work for a time and go off to enjoy a holiday.
Such periods do not occur to all simultaneously, else would the great postal work of the kingdom come to a dead-lock. They are distributed so that the action of the heart never flags, even when large drafts are made on the working staff, as when a whole battalion of the employés goes out for a field-day in the garb of Volunteers.
There are between eight and nine hundred men of the Post-Office, who, not content with carrying Her Majesty’s mails, voluntarily carry Her Majesty’s rifles. These go through the drudgery and drill of military service at odd hours, as they find time, and on high occasions they march out to the martial strains of fife and drum.
On one such occasion the Post-Office battalion (better known as the 49th Middlesex) took part in a sham fight, which Phil Maylands and Peter Pax (who chanced to have holidays at the time) went out to see. They did not take part in it, not being Volunteers, but they took pride in it, as worthy, right-spirited men of the Post could not fail to do.
The 49th Middlesex distinguished themselves on that occasion. Their appearance as they marched on to the battle-ground—some distance out of London—bore creditable comparison with the best corps in the service. So said Pax; and Pax was a good judge, being naturally critical.
When the fight began, and the rattling musketry, to say nothing of booming artillery, created such a smoke that no unmilitary person could make head or tail of anything, the 49th Middlesex took advantage of a hollow, and executed a flank movement that would have done credit to the 42nd Highlanders, and even drew forth an approving nod and smile from the reviewing officer, who with his cocked-hatted staff witnessed the movement from an eminence which was swept by a devastating cross-fire from every part of the field.
When the artillery were ordered to another eminence to check the movement and dislodge them from the hollow, the gallant 49th stood their ground in the face of a fire that would have swept that hollow as with the besom of destruction. They also replied with a continuous discharge that would, in five minutes, have immolated every man and horse on the eminence.
When, afterwards, a body of cavalry was sent to teach the gallant 49th a lesson, and came thundering down on them like a wolf on the fold, or an avalanche on a Swiss hamlet, they formed square with mathematical precision, received them with a withering fire that ought to have emptied every saddle, and, with the bayonet’s point, turned them trooping off to the right and left, discomfited.
When, finally, inflated with the pride of victory, they began to re-form line too soon, and were caught in the act by the returning cavalry, they flung themselves into rallying squares, which, bristling with bayonets like porcupines of steel, keeping up such an incessant roar of musketry that the spot on which they stood became, as it were, a heart or core of furious firing, in the midst of a field that was already hotly engaged all round. We do not vouch for the correctness of this account of the battle. We received it from Pax, and give it for what it is worth.
Oh! it was, as Phil Maylands said, “a glorious day entirely for the 49th Middlesex, that same Queen’s Birthday,” for there was all the pomp and circumstance of war, all the smoke and excitation, all the glitter of bright sunshine on accoutrements, the flash of sword and bayonet, and the smoke and fire of battle, without the bloodshed and the loss of life!
No doubt there were drawbacks. Where is the human family, however well-regulated, that claims exemption from such? There were some of the warriors on that bloodless battle-field who had no more idea of the art of war than the leg of a telescope has of astronomy. There were many who did not know which were friends and which were foes. Many more there were who did not care! Some of the Volunteer officers (though not many), depending too much on their sergeants to keep them right, drove these sergeants nearly mad. Others there were, who, depending too much on their own genius, drove their colonels frantic; but by far the greater number, both of officers and men, knew their work and did it well.
Yes, it was indeed a glorious day entirely, that same Queen’s Birthday, for all arms of the service, especially for the 49th Middlesex; and when that gallant body of men marched from the field of glory, with drums beating and fifes shrieking, little Pax could scarcely contain himself for joy, and wished with all his heart that he were drum-major of the corps, that he might find vent for his feelings in the bursting of the big drum.
“Now,” said Phil, when they had seen the last of the Volunteers off the field, “what shall you and I do?”
“Ah! true, that is the question,” returned Pax; “what are we to do? Our holidays are before us. The day is far spent; the evening is at hand. We can’t bivouac here, that is plain. What say you, Phil, to walking over to Miss Stivergill’s? I have a general invite from that lady to spend any holidays I have to dispose of at Rosebud Cottage. It is not more than two miles from where we stand.”
“D’ye think she’d extend her invite to me,” asked Phil dubiously.
“Think!” exclaimed Pax, “I am sure of it. Why, that respectable old lady owns a heart that might have been enshrined in a casket of beauty. She’s a trump—a regular brick.”
“Come, Pax, be respectful.”
“Ain’t I respectful, you Irish noodle? My language mayn’t be choice, indeed, but you can’t find fault with the sentiment. Come along, before it gets darker. Any friend of mine will be welcome; besides, I half expect to find your sister there, and we shall be sure to see Miss Lillycrop and my sweet little cousin Tottie, who has been promoted to the condition of ladies’-maid and companion.”
“Ah, poor Tottie!” said Phil, “her father’s illness has told heavily on her.”
“That’s true,” returned Pax, as every vestige of fun vanished from his expressive face and was replaced by sympathy, “but I’ve good news for her to-night. Since her last visit her father has improved, and the doctor says he may yet recover. The fresh air of the new house has done him good.”
Pax referred here to a new residence in a more airy neighbourhood, to which Bones had been removed through the kindness and liberality of Miss Stivergill, whose respect for the male sex had, curiously enough, increased from the date of the burglary. With characteristic energy she had removed Bones, with his wife and a few household goods, to a better dwelling near the river, but this turned out to be damp, and Bones became worse in it. She therefore instituted another prompt removal to a more decidedly salubrious quarter. Here Bones improved a little in health. But the poor man’s injury was of a serious nature. Ribs had been broken, and the lungs pierced. A constitution debilitated by previous dissipation could not easily withstand the shock. His life trembled in the balance.
The change, however, in the man’s spirit was marvellous. It had not been the result of sudden calamity or of prolonged suffering. Before his accident, while in full vigour and in the midst of his sins, the drops which melted him had begun to fall like dew. The night when his eyes were opened to see Jesus was but the culminating of God’s work of mercy. From that night he spoke little, but the little he said was to express thankfulness. He cared not to reason. He would not answer questions that were sometimes foolishly put to him, but he listened to the Word of God, read by his poor yet rejoicing wife, with eager, thirsting looks. When told that he was in danger he merely smiled.
“Georgie,” he whispered—for he had reverted to the old original name of his wife, which, with his proper name of Blackadder, he had changed on coming to London—“Georgie, I wish I might live for your sake and His, but it’ll be better to go. We’re on the same road at last, Georgie, and shall meet again.”
Aspel marked the change and marvelled. He could not understand it at all. But he came to understand it ere long. He had followed Bones in his changes of abode, because he had formed a strange liking for the man, but he refused to associate in any way with his former friends. They occasionally visited the sick man, but if Aspel chanced to be with him at the time he invariably went out by the back-door as they entered by the front. He refused even to see Phil Maylands, but met Pax, and seemed not to mind him. At all events he took no notice of him. Whether his conduct was owing to pride, shame, or recklessness, none could tell.
The changes of residence we have referred to had the effect of throwing off the scent a certain gentleman who had been tracking out Abel Bones with the perseverance, though not the success, of a bloodhound.
The man in grey, after losing, or rather coming to the end, of his clew at the Post-Office furnace, recovered it by some magical powers known best to himself and his compeers, and tracked his victim to Archangel Court, but here he lost the scent again, and seemed to be finally baffled. It was well for Bones that it so fell out, because in his weak state it would probably have gone hard with him had he believed that the police were still on his tracks. As it was, he progressed slowly but favourably, and with this good news Pax and his friend hurried to Rosebud Cottage.
What an unmitigated blessing a holiday is to those who work hard! Ah! ye lazy ones of earth, if ye gain something by unbounded leisure ye lose much. Stay—we will not preach on that text. It needs not!
To return: Phil and Pax found Tottie and May at The Rosebud as they had anticipated—the latter being free for a time on sick-leave—and the four went in for a holiday, as Pax put it, neck and crop.
It may occur to some that there was somewhat of incongruity in the companionship of Tottie and May, but the difference between the poor man’s daughter who had been raised to comparative affluence, and the gentleman’s daughter who had been brought down to comparative poverty, was not so great as one might suppose. It must be remembered that Tottie had started life with a God-fearing mother, and that of itself secured her from much contamination in the midst of abounding evil, while it surrounded her with a rich influence for good. Then, latterly, she had been mentally, morally, and physically trained by Miss Lillycrop, who was a perfect pattern of propriety delicacy, good sense, and good taste. She first read to her pupil, and then made the pupil read to her. Miss Lillycrop’s range of reading was wide and choice. Thus Tottie, who was naturally refined and intelligent, in time became more so by education. She had grown wonderfully too, and had acquired a certain sedateness of demeanour, which was all the more captivating that it was an utterly false index to her character, for Tottie’s spirit was as wildly exuberant as that of the wildest denizen of Archangel Court.
In like manner Pax had been greatly improved by his association with Phil Maylands. The vigorous strength of Phil’s mind had unconsciously exercised a softening influence on his little admirer. We have said that they studied and read together. Hence Pax was learned beyond his years and station. The fitness therefore of the four to associate pleasantly has, we think, been clearly made out.
Pax, at all events, had not a shadow of a doubt on that point, especially when the four lay down under the shadow of a spreading oak to examine the butterflies and moths they had captured in the fields.
“What babies we are,” said Phil, “to go after butterflies in this fashion!”
“Speak for yourself,” retorted Pax; “I consider myself an entomologist gathering specimens. Call ’em specimens, Phil; that makes a world of difference.—Oh, Tot! what a splendid one you have got there! It reminds me so of the time when I used to carry you about the fields on my back, and call you Merry. Don’t you remember?”
“No,” said Tottie, “I don’t.”
“And won’t you let me call you Merry?” pleaded Pax.
“No, I won’t. I don’t believe you ever carried me on your back, or that my name was Merry.”
“What an unbeliever!” exclaimed Pax.
“You can’t deny that you are merry to-day, Tot,” said May.
Tot did not deny it, but, so to speak, admitted it by starting up and giving sudden chase to a remarkably bright butterfly that passed at the moment.
“And don’t you remember,” resumed Pax, when she returned and sat down again by his side, “the day when we caught the enormous spider, which I kept in a glass box, where it spun a net and caught the flies I pushed into the box for it to feed on? No? Nor the black beetle we found fighting with another beetle, which, I tried to impress on you, was its grandmother, and you laughed heartily as if you really understood what I said, though you didn’t. You remember that, surely? No? Well, well—these joys were thrown away on you, for you remember nothing.”
