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"Yes, I've thought of a thing or two," said Mr. Fotheringay.
"But--some of the things came a bit twisty. You saw that fish at first?
Wrong sort of bowl and wrong sort of fish. And I thought I'd ask
someone."
"A proper course," said Mr. Maydig, "a very proper course--altogether
the proper course." He stopped and looked at Mr. Fotheringay. "It's
practically an unlimited gift. Let us test your powers, for instance. If
they really are ... If they really are all they seem to be."
And so, incredible as it may seem, in the study of the little house
behind the Congregational Chapel, on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 10,
1
896, Mr. Fotheringay, egged on and inspired by Mr. Maydig, began to
work miracles. The reader's attention is specially and definitely called
to the date. He will object, probably has already objected, that certain
points in this story are improbable, that if any things of the sort
already described had indeed occurred, they would have been in all the
papers a year ago. The details immediately following he will find
particularly hard to accept, because among other things they involve the
conclusion that he or she, the reader in question, must have been killed
in a violent and unprecedented manner more than a year ago. Now a
miracle is nothing if not improbable, and as a matter of fact the reader
was killed in a violent and unprecedented manner a year ago. In the
subsequent course of this story that will become perfectly clear and
credible, as every right-minded and reasonable reader will admit. But
this is not the place for the end of the story, being but little beyond
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