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"They're pretty nearly all alive," said Graybody; "and they do give the place just an appearance like the cemetery at Old Christchurch." He meant the capital in the province of Canterbury. "In the course of a few years you will be quite cheerful here." "I don't know much about that, Mr President. I'm not sure that for myself I want to be cheerful anywhere.
"You think that he will come on the thirtieth?" said Graybody, as he took my hand at parting. "I think," replied I, "that you and I, as loyal citizens of the Republic, are bound to suppose that he will do his duty as a citizen." Then I went, leaving him standing in doubt at his door. I had left Graybody with a lie on my tongue.
I had not said much to him during the latter months as to Crasweller, in particular. His name used formerly to be very ready in all my conversations with Graybody, but of late I had talked to him in a more general tone. "You can't tell me yet when it's to be, Mr President? We do find it a little dull here." Now he knew as well as I did the day and the year of Crasweller's birth.
He was usually melancholy, disheartened, and impoverished; but he was always glad to see me, and I was accustomed to go frequently to the college, in order to find a sympathetic soul with whom to converse about the future of the establishment. "Well, Graybody," I said, "I suppose we are nearly ready for the first comer." "Oh yes; we're always ready; but then the first comer is not."
But it was necessary that I should show a determined front to old Graybody, and make him feel that I at any rate was determined to remain firm to my purpose. "Mr Crasweller will give you no such trouble as you suggest," said I. "Perhaps he has come round." "He is a gentleman whom we have both known intimately for many years, and he has always been a friend to the Fixed Period.
I said that I was bound to suppose that Crasweller would do his duty as a citizen, by which I had meant Graybody to understand that I expected my old friend to submit to deposition. Now I expected nothing of the kind, and it grieved me to think that I should be driven to such false excuses.
If there might be postponement such as that, I doubt whether we should ever find the time for our inhabitants to come. No, Graybody; there can be no postponement for the Fixed Period." "It might have been made sixty-nine or seventy," said he. "Originally, no doubt. But the wisdom of the Assembly has settled all that.
I was, however, quite aware that it would be useless to spend my energy in dilating on this to Mr Graybody. He simply was willing to shuffle off his mortal coil, because he found it uncomfortable in the wearing. In all likelihood, had his time come as nigh as that of Crasweller, he too, like Crasweller, would impotently implore the grace of another year.
This was Mr Graybody, the curator, who had been specially appointed to occupy a certain residence, to look after the grounds, and to keep the books of the establishment. Graybody and I had come as young men to Britannula together, and whereas I had succeeded in all my own individual attempts, he had unfortunately failed. He was exactly of my age, as was also his wife.
But under the stress of misfortune they had both become unnaturally old, and had at last been left ruined and hopeless, without a shilling on which to depend. I had always been a sincere friend to Graybody, though he was, indeed, a man very difficult to befriend. On most subjects he thought as I did, if he can be said to have thought at all.
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