‘I find it bores me.’

‘Is there any news today?’ inquired the Doctor.

‘Nothing at all, sir,’ replied Mr. Maldon. ‘There’s an account about the people being hungry and discontented down in the North, but they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere.’

The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change the subject, ‘Then there’s no news at all; and no news, they say, is good news.’

‘There’s a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder,’ observed Mr. Maldon. ‘But somebody is always being murdered, and I didn’t read it.’

A display of indifference to all