The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone

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«Alive!»

«Dead!»

«Alive in New England, damn it.»

«Died twenty years ago!»

«Pass the hat, I'll go myself and bring back his head!»

That's how the talk went that night. A stranger set it off with his mouthings about Dudley Stone dead. Alive! we cried. And shouldn't we know? Weren't we the last frail remnants of those who had burnt incense and read his books by the light of blazing intellectual votives in the twenties?

_The_ Dudley Stone. That magnificent stylist, that proudest of literary lions. Surely you recall the head-pounding, the cliff-jumping, the whistlings of doom that followed on his writing his publishers this note:

_Sirs: Today, aged 30, I retire from the field, renounce writing, burn all my effects, toss my latest manuscript on the dump, cry hail and fare thee well. Yrs., affect_.

_Dudley Stone_

Earthquakes and avalanches, in that order.

«_Why?_» we asked ourselves, meeting down the years.

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