Produced by Dagny; John Bickers SIMON THE JESTER By William J. Locke CHAPTER I I met Renniker the other day at the club. He is a man who knows everything--from the method of trimming a puppy's tail for a dog-show, without being disqualified, to the innermost workings of the mind of every European potentate. If I want information on any subject under heaven I ask Renniker. “Can you tell me,” said I, “the most God-forsaken spot in England?” Renniker, being in a flippant mood, mentioned a fashionable watering-place on the South Coast. I pleaded the seriousness of my question. “What I want,” said I, “is a place compared to which Golgotha, Aceldama, the Dead Sea, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and the Bowery would be leafy bowers of uninterrupted delight.” “Then Murglebed-on-Sea is what you're looking for,” said Renniker. “Are you going there at once?” “At once,” said I. “It's November,” said he, “and a villainous November at that; so you'll see Murglebed-on-Sea in the fine flower of its desolation.” I thanked him, went home, and summoned my excellent man Rogers. “Rogers,” said I, “I am going to the seaside. I heard that Murglebed is a nice quiet little spot. You will go down and inspect it for me and bring back a report.” He went blithe and light-hearted, though he thought me insane; he returned with the air of a serving-man who, expecting to find a well-equipped pantry, had wandered into a charnel house. “It's an awful place, sir. It's sixteen miles from a railway station. The shore is a mud flat. There's no hotel, and the inhabitants are like cannibals.” “I start for Murglebed-on-Sea to-morrow,” said I. Rogers started at me. His loose mouth quivered like that of a child preparing to cry. “We can't possibly stay there, sir,” he remonstrated. “_We_ are not going to try,” I retorted. “I'm going by myself.” His face brightened. Almost cheerfully he assured me that I should find nothing to eat in Murglebed. “You can amuse yourself,” said I, “by sending me down a daily hamper of provisions.” “There isn't even a church,” he continued. “Then you can send me down a tin one from Humphreys'. I believe they can supply one with everything from a tin rabbit-hutch to a town hall.” He sighed and departed, and the next day I found myself here, in Murglebed-on-Sea. On a murky, sullen November day Murglebed exhibits unimagined horrors of scenic depravity. It snarls at you malignantly. It is like a bit of waste land in Gehenna. There is a lowering, soap-suddy thing a mile away from the more or less dry land which local ignorance and superstition call the sea. The interim is mud--oozy, brown, malevolent mud. Sometimes it seems to heave as if with the myriad bodies of slimy crawling eels and worms and snakes. A few foul boats lie buried in it.