MS-WU-MSS008-3-49

[0978] to submit him and myself to this fresh ordeal, when it could be avoided.
[0979] These considerations crossed my mind with a certain rapidity. [0980] Now with
regard to the pockets, four in all, of my clothes, I verified their
contents in front of the valet, and discovered that certain things e ^{[place = overwritten] w}ere
missing.

[0981] My sucking-stone in particular was no longer there. [0982] But
sucking-stones abound on our beaches, when you know where to look for
them, and I deemed it wiser to say nothing about it, all the more so as
he would have been capable, after an hour's argument, of going and fetching
me from a ^{[place = overwritten] t}he garden a completely unsuckable stone. [0983] This was a decision
too which I took almost instantaneously. [0984] But of the other objects which
had disappeared why speak, since I did not know w ^{[place = overwritten] e}xactly what they were.

[0985] And perhaps they had been taken from me at the police station, without
my knowing it, or scattered and lost, when I fell, or some other time,
or thrown away, for I would sometimes throw away all I had about me, in
a burst of irritation. [0986] So why speak of them.

[0987] I resolved nevertheless
to declare loudly that a knife was missing, a noble knife, and I did so
to such effect that I soon received a very fine vegetable knife,
so-called stainless, but it didn't take me long to stain it, and which
opened and shut into the bargain, unlike all the vegetable knif ^{[place = margin left] v}es I had

[0987] ever known, and which had a safety catch, highly dangerous as soon
appeared and the cause of innumerable cuts, all over my fingers caught
between the handle of so-called genuine Irish horn and the blade red with
rust and so blunted that it was less a matter of cuts than of contusions.

[0988] And if I deal at such length with this knife it is because I have it
somewhere still I think, among my possessions, and because having dealt
with it here at such length I shall not have to deal with it again, when
the time moment comes, if it ever comes, to draw up the list of my
possessions, and that will be a reliev ^{[place = overwritten] f}, a welcome relief, when that