ABSTRACT
Another time, when I lived in a cottage where there were no servants at night time, I dreamt that I heard a knock on the front door in the very early morning. I went down to the front door in my night shirt-this was before the days of pyjamas-and, when I opened the door, I found God on the doorstep. I recognized Him at once from His portraits. Now, a little before this, my brother-in-law Logan Pearsall Smith had said that he thought of God as rather like the Duke of Cambridge-that is to say, still august, but conscious of being out of date. And, remembering this, I thought, well, I must be kind to Him and show that, although of course He is perhaps a little out of date, still I quite know how one should behave to a guest. So I hit Him on the back and said, ‘Come in, old fellow’. He was very much pleased at being treated so kindly by one whom He realized to be not quite of His congregation. After we had talked for some time, He said, ‘Now, is there anything I could do for you?’ And I thought, ‘Well, He is omnipotent. I suppose there are things He could do for me’. I said, ‘I should like you to give me Noah’s Ark’, and I thought I should put it somewhere in the suburbs and charge sixpence admission, and I should make a huge fortune. But His face fell, and He said: ‘I am very sorry, I can’t do that for you because I have already given it to an American friend of mine.’ And that was the end of my conversation with Him.
