"
This was so interesting that we all sat down again to listen.
"I wasn't talking of place, but of time," murmured the young man whom
the stranger had answered.
"I cannot help that," said the stranger decisively; "the End of the
World is the End of the World, and whether you are talking of space or
of time it does not matter, for when you have got to the end you have
got to the end, as may be proved in several ways."
"How did you get to it?" said one of our companions.
"That is very simply answered," said the elder man; "you get to it by
walking straight in front of you."
"Anyone could do that," said the other.
"Anyone could," said the elder man, "but nobody does. I did.... When I
was quite a boy in my father's parsonage (for my father was a parson),
having heard so much about the End of the World and seeing that people's
descriptions of it differed so much and that everybody was quite sure of
his own, I used to take my father's friends and guests aside privately,
for I was afraid to take my father himself, and I used to ask them how
they knew what the End of the World was really like, and whether they
had seen it. Some laughed, others were silent, and others were angry;
but no one gave me any information. At last I decided (and it was very
wise of me) that the only way to find out a thing of that sort was to
find it out for one's self, and not to go by hearsay, so I determined to
go straight on without stopping until I got to the End of the World.
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