The circumstances of my reappearance are too much a matter of common knowledge for me to relate in detail. As is known, error entered in, and instead of being taken out of the Asteradio, as was anticipated, like a piece of cake that had been put away in the cupboard, I was first found, hysterically sobbing, at one o’clock in the morning, on the steps of the Constitutional Club in Northumberland Avenue.
The constable who called to me was unable to get anything from me. Apart from incessantly repeating the words ‘For King and Empire, For King and Empire’, I would not talk, and I could not get any clear idea of who I was, where I had been, or what I was doing.
I simply wept floods of tears and repeated the same words. What caused my choice of these words I have no idea. I had at the time, as far as I can remember, a feeling that it was urgently necessary for me to deliver a solemn message or slogan of some sort (presumably from Moribundia) and these were the only words that came into my head. I was removed from the steps of the Constitutional Club to the Police Station. The whole thing was very odd.
Excerpt from: Patrick Hamilton, Impromptu In Moribundia. Trent Editions, 1999. (Originally published 1939.)
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