after a hag in the moonlight, and
cooking your breakfast in the grey morning, then it is indeed time that
I should die. Good-bye, brother."

So saying, the Philosopher arose and removed all the furniture to the
sides of the room so that there was a clear space left in the centre.
He then took off his boots and his coat, and standing on his toes he
commenced to gyrate with extraordinary rapidity. In a few moments his
movements became steady and swift, and a sound came from him like the
humming of a swift saw; this sound grew deeper and deeper, and at last
continuous, so that the room was filled with a thrilling noise. In a
quarter of an hour the movement began to noticeably slacken. In another
three minutes it was quite slow. In two more minutes he grew visible
again as a body, and then he wobbled to and fro, and at last dropped
in a heap on the floor. He was quite dead, and on his face was an
expression of serene beatitude.

"God be with you, brother," said the remaining Philosopher, and he lit
his pipe, focused his vision on the extreme tip of his nose, and began
to meditate profoundly on the aphorism whether the good is the all or
the all is the good. In another moment he would have become oblivious of
the room, the company, and the corpse, but the Grey Woman of Dun Gortin
shattered his meditation by a demand for advice as to what should next
be done. The Philosopher, with an effort, detached his eyes from his
nose and his mind from his maxim.

"Chaos," said he, "is the first condition. Order is the first law.
Continuity is the first reflection. Quietude is the first happiness. Our
brother is dead--bury him." So saying, he returned his eyes to his nose,
and his mind to his maxim, and lapsed to a profound reflection wherein
nothing sat perched on insubstantiality, and the Spirit of Artifice
goggled at the puzzle.

The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin took a pinch of snuff from her box and
raised the keen over her husband:

"You were my husband and you are dead.

It is wisdom that has killed you.

If you had listened to my wisdom instead of to your own you would still
be a trouble to me and I would still be happy.

Women are stronger than men--they do not die of wisdom.

They are better than men because they do not seek wisdom.

They are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.

I had fourteen hundred maledictions, my little store, and by a trick you
stole them and left me empty.

You stole my w