A poor lost soul found himself shipwrecked upon a desolate shore. He lay on the beach for a spell, wondering how he could survive, what he would eat, where he would find shelter, and how long it might be before he was found. He was facing, in short, the prospect of being a new Robinson Crusoe.
That thought terrified him. What if he found a footprint on the beach? Would the natives be kindly and gentle, or would they be warlike and hostile? Was he doomed to a sad fate at the hands of some warlike people?
Shortly, he staggered into the forest. He had not been there long when he heard a salty voice crying out:
"All right, ye dirty, miserable excuse fer a man, but if ye got an ace up yer sleeve, I'll cut yer heart out and make ye eat it!"
The shipwrecked victim fell to his knees, breathed a sigh of relief, and said to himself,
"Well, at least I'm in a Christian country..."
--------------- A Final Thought ...
"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."
- Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), U.S. author. Philip Marlowe, in Farewell, My Lovely, ch. 34 (1940)