"Yees, sir, I should like to see it. It"s got a tail, ain"t it, sir?"

"Yes, a very fine tail."

"Yees, sir, they said it "ad a tail. Where do you go to see it, sir?"

"Go! You don"t want to go anywhere. You"ll see it in your own garden at ten o"clock."

He thanked me, and, tumbling over a sack of potatoes, plunged head foremost into his punt and departed.

Next morning, I asked him if he had seen the comet.

"No, sir, I couldn"t see it anywhere."

"Did you look?"

"Yees, sir. I looked a long time."

"How on earth did you manage to miss it then?" I exclaimed. "It was a clear enough night. Where did you look?"

"In our garden, sir. Where you told me."

"Whereabouts in the garden?" chimed in Amenda, who happened to be standing by; "under the gooseberry bushes?"

"Yees--everywhere."

That is what he had done: he had taken the stable lantern and searched the garden for it.

But the day when he broke even his own record for foolishness happened about three weeks later. MacShaughna.s.sy was staying with us at the time, and on the Friday evening he mixed us a salad, according to a recipe given him by his aunt. On the Sat.u.r.day morning, everybody was, of course, very ill. Everybody always is very ill after partaking of any dish prepared by MacShaughna.s.sy. Some people attempt to explain this fact by talking glibly of "cause and effect." MacShaughna.s.sy maintains that it is simply coincidence.

"How do you know," he says, "that you wouldn"t have been ill if you hadn"t eaten any? You"re queer enough now, any one can see, and I"m very sorry for you; but, for all that you can tell, if you hadn"t eaten any of that stuff you might have been very much worse--perhaps dead. In all probability, it has saved your life." And for the rest of the day, he a.s.sumes towards you the att.i.tude of a man who has dragged you from the grave.

The moment Jimmy arrived I seized hold of him.

"Jimmy," I said, "you must rush off to the chemist"s immediately. Don"t stop for anything. Tell him to give you something for colic--the result of vegetable poisoning. It must be something very strong, and enough for four. Don"t forget, something to counteract the effects of vegetable poisoning. Hurry up, or it may be too late."

My excitement communicated itself to the boy. He tumbled back into his punt, and pushed off vigorously. I watched him land, and disappear in the direction of the village.

Half an hour pa.s.sed, but Jimmy did not return. No one felt sufficiently energetic to go after him. We had only just strength enough to sit still and feebly abuse him. At the end of an hour we were all feeling very much better. At the end of an hour and a half we were glad he had not returned when he ought to have, and were only curious as to what had become of him.

In the evening, strolling through the village, we saw him sitting by the open door of his mother"s cottage, with a shawl wrapped round him. He was looking worn and ill.

"Why, Jimmy," I said, "what"s the matter? Why didn"t you come back this morning?"

"I couldn"t, sir," Jimmy answered, "I was so queer. Mother made me go to bed."

"You seemed all right in the morning," I said; "what"s made you queer?"

"What Mr. Jones give me, sir: it upset me awful."

A light broke in upon me.

"What did you say, Jimmy, when you got to Mr. Jones"s shop?" I asked.

"I told "im what you said, sir, that "e was to give me something to counteract the effects of vegetable poisoning. And that it was to be very strong, and enough for four."

"And what did he say?"

""E said that was only your nonsense, sir, and that I"d better have enough for one to begin with; and then "e asked me if I"d been eating green apples again."

"And you told him?"

"Yees, sir, I told "im I"d "ad a few, and "e said it served me right, and that "e "oped it would be a warning to me. And then "e put something fizzy in a gla.s.s and told me to drink it."

"And you drank it?"

"Yees, sir."

"It never occurred to you, Jimmy, that there was nothing the matter with you--that you were never feeling better in your life, and that you did not require any medicine?"

"No, sir."

"Did one single scintilla of thought of any kind occur to you in connection with the matter, Jimmy, from beginning to end?"

"No, sir."

People who never met Jimmy disbelieve this story. They argue that its premises are in disaccord with the known laws governing human nature, that its details do not square with the average of probability. People who have seen and conversed with Jimmy accept it with simple faith.

The advent of Jephson--which I trust the reader has not entirely forgotten--cheered us up considerably. Jephson was always at his best when all other things were at their worst. It was not that he struggled in Mark Tapley fashion to appear most cheerful when most depressed; it was that petty misfortunes and mishaps genuinely amused and inspirited him. Most of us can recall our unpleasant experiences with amused affection; Jephson possessed the robuster philosophy that enabled him to enjoy his during their actual progress. He arrived drenched to the skin, chuckling hugely at the idea of having come down on a visit to a houseboat in such weather.

Under his warming influence, the hard lines on our faces thawed, and by supper time we were, as all Englishmen and women who wish to enjoy life should be, independent of the weather.

Later on, as if disheartened by our indifference, the rain ceased, and we took our chairs out on the deck, and sat watching the lightning, which still played incessantly. Then, not unnaturally, the talk drifted into a sombre channel, and we began recounting stories, dealing with the gloomy and mysterious side of life.

Some of these were worth remembering, and some were not. The one that left the strongest impression on my mind was a tale that Jephson told us.

I had been relating a somewhat curious experience of my own. I met a man in the Strand one day that I knew very well, as I thought, though I had not seen him for years. We walked together to Charing Cross, and there we shook hands and parted. Next morning, I spoke of this meeting to a mutual friend, and then I learnt, for the first time, that the man had died six months before.

The natural inference was that I had mistaken one man for another, an error that, not having a good memory for faces, I frequently fall into.

What was remarkable about the matter, however, was that throughout our walk I had conversed with the man under the impression that he was that other dead man, and, whether by coincidence or not, his replies had never once suggested to me my mistake.

As soon as I finished, Jephson, who had been listening very thoughtfully, asked me if I believed in spiritualism "to its fullest extent."

"That is rather a large question," I answered. "What do you mean by "spiritualism to its fullest extent"?"

"Well, do you believe that the spirits of the dead have not only the power of revisiting this earth at their will, but that, when here, they have the power of action, or rather, of exciting to action? Let me put a definite case. A spiritualist friend of mine, a sensible and by no means imaginative man, once told me that a table, through the medium of which the spirit of a friend had been in the habit of communicating with him, came slowly across the room towards him, of its own accord, one night as he sat alone, and pinioned him against the wall. Now can any of you believe that, or can"t you?"

"I could," Brown took it upon himself to reply; "but, before doing so, I should wish for an introduction to the friend who told you the story.

Speaking generally," he continued, "it seems to me that the difference between what we call the natural and the supernatural is merely the difference between frequency and rarity of occurrence. Having regard to the phenomena we are compelled to admit, I think it illogical to disbelieve anything we are unable to disprove."