aw such a
fellow as that, never! It would give me real pleasure to hire someone to
kick him."

The evening passed quietly; the boys left at home sat in their places,
reading or pretending to read. Mr. Blinkhorn, left in charge of them,
was at his table in the corner noting up his diary. Paul was free for a
time to think over his position.

At first he was calm and triumphant; his dearest hopes, his
long-wished-for opportunity of a fair and unprejudiced hearing, were at
last to be fulfilled--Chawner was well out of the way for the best part
of two hours--the Doctor was very unlikely to be detained nearly so long
over one call; his one anxiety was lest he might not be able, after all,
to explain himself in a thoroughly effective manner--he planned out a
little scheme for doing this.

He must begin gradually of course, so as not to alarm the schoolmaster
or raise doubts of his sincerity or, worse still, his sanity. Perhaps a
slight glance at instances of extraordinary interventions of the
supernatural from the earliest times, tending to show the extreme
probability of their survival on rare occasions even to the present day,
might be a prudent and cautious introduction to the subject--only he
could not think of any, and, after all, it might weary the Doctor.

He would start somewhat in this manner: "You cannot, my dear sir, have
failed to observe since our meeting this year, a certain difference in
my manner and bearing"--one's projected speeches are somehow generally
couched in finer language than, when it comes to the point, the tongue
can be prevailed upon to utter. Mr. Bultitude learned this opening
sentence by heart, he thought it taking and neat, the sort of thing to
fix his hearer's attention from the first.

After that he found it difficult to get any further; he knew himself
that all he was about to describe was plain, unvarnished fact--but how
would it strike a stranger's ear? He found himself seeking ways in which
to tone down the glaring improbability of the thing as much as possible,
but in vain; "I don't know how I shall ever get it all out," he told
himself at last; "if I think about it much longer I shall begin to
disbelieve in it myself."

Here Biddlecomb came up in a confidential manner and sat down by Paul;
"Dick," he began, in rather a trembling voice, "did I hear the Doctor
say something about your having something to tell him?"

"Oh Lord, here's another of them now!" thought Paul. "You are rig