25 by Beverley Nichols — Read

And thus, abruptly, I end. A line drawn, a cigarette thrown out of an open window, a pile of manuscript pushed into the corner of one's desk, waiting to be sent to the typist.

And thus, I suppose, youth ends. A line drawn under one's eyes, a sudden realization, as one is laughing or drinking, that the ‘stuff which will not endure' has worn itself threadbare. To what purpose? God alone knows. Not I.