And since for them it was the beginning of all things, they called it,
naturally, The End of the World. To escape to the End of the World,
unaccompanied by grown-ups, and, if possible, their whereabouts
unknown to anybody, was a daily duty second to no other. It was a
duty, wet or fine, they seldom left, neglected.
Besides themselves, two others alone held passes to this sanctuary:
Uncle Felix, because he loved to go there (he wrote his adventure
stories there, saying anything might happen in such a lonely place),
and the Gardener, because he was obliged to. Come-Back Stumper was
excluded. They had taken him once, and he had said such an abominable
thing that he was never allowed to visit it again. "A messy hole," he
called it. Mr. Jinks had never even seen it, but, after his death in
the railway accident, his remains, recovered without charge from the
Hospital, had been buried somewhere in the scrap-heap. From this point
of view alone he knew the End of the World; he was worthy of no other.
His epitaph was appalling--too horrible to mention really. Tim
composed it, but Uncle Felix distinctly said that it never, _never_
must be referred to audibly again:
Here Matthew Jinks
Just lies and st--
"It's _not_ nice," he said emphatically, "and you mustn't say it.
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