“‘I’m going to commit suicide rather than try to please them any more,’ ses Matty, ‘and if I could discover whether New York or Boston would be the better place to end my life, I’d be a happy man.’
“‘You might as well die in either place as to jump from the Eiffel Tower, Blarney Castle, Shandon Steeple, or try to swim over Niagara Falls,’ ses the Gaekwar.
“‘’Tis easy to see,’ ses Matty, ‘that you can’t be of any help or consolation to a man like myself. You have too much common-sense to pay any attention to a barking dog, so to speak.’
“‘I have, indeed,’ ses the Gaekwar. ‘You need never muzzle a dog that barks.’
“So with that he shook hands with Matty and ses: ‘Good-by, God speed you, long life to you, and may your next trouble be seven daughters. The more trouble we have the less we think about it, and a thorn in a man’s toe is nothing to a bullet in his head.’
“After that Matty went to the Czar of all the Russians, and from the Czar to the King of Greece, and after he had spent years traveling the world looking, in vain, for advice as to whether New York or Boston would be the best place to commit suicide, he returned home and to his great surprise learnt that his two wives had married again.”
“And what happened then?” said Micus.
“Well, of course, he found he was worse off than ever. He could not decide where to commit suicide, and his wives, the cause of all his trouble and entertainment, would never trouble him again. They were too busy troubling some one else. And lo and behold! the shock stretched him on the flat of his back, and when the doctor told him that he had only a month to live, he turned his face to the wall and died.”
“He expected to die of old age, like all would-be suicides, I dare say,” said Micus.
“Of course he did,” said Padna. “He was just one of the many people whose trouble is their greatest pleasure, and who are never happy only when they are annoying others with their own affairs.”