tell me which
confectioner's. It might have been any one of four or five. He only said
that it would all come right, and that I should bake an apple tart."

Another quarter of an hour passed, and we were all ravenous. It was
evident that Whitehall had made some mistake. We began to roll our eyes
towards the apple pie, as the boat's crew does towards the boy in the
stories of shipwreck. A large hairy man, with an anchor tattooed upon
his hand, rose and set the pie in front of Turpey.

"What d'you say, gentlemen,--shall I serve it out?"

We all drew up at the table with a decision which made words
superfluous. In five minutes the pie dish was as clean as when the cook
first saw it. And our ill-luck vanished with the pie. A minute later the
landlady's son entered with the soup; and cod's head, roast beef,
game and ice pudding followed in due succession. It all came from some
misunderstanding about time. But we did them justice, in spite of the
curious hors d'oeuvre with which we had started; and a pleasanter dinner
or a more enjoyable evening I have seldom had.

"Sorry I was so bowled over, Dr. Munro, sir," said Whitehall next
morning. "I need hilly country and a bracing air, not a ---- croquet
lawn like this. Well, I'm ---- glad to hear that you gentlemen enjoyed
yourselves, and I hope you found everything to your satisfaction."

I assured him that we did; but I had not the heart to tell him about the
apple pie.

I tell you these trivial matters, my dear Bertie, just to show you that
I am not down on my luck, and that my life is not pitched in the minor
key altogether, in spite of my queer situation. But, to turn to graver
things: I was right glad to get your letter, and to read all your
denunciations about dogmatic science. Don't imagine that my withers are
wrung by what you say, for I agree with almost every word of it.

The man who claims that we can know nothing is, to my mind, as
unreasonable as he who insists that everything has been divinely
revealed to us. I know nothing more unbearable than the complacent type
of scientist who knows very exactly all that he does know, but has not
imagination enough to understand what a speck his little accumulation of
doubtful erudition is when compared with the immensity of our ignorance.
He is the person who thinks that the universe can be explained by laws,
as if a law did not require construction as well as a world! The motion
of the engine can be explained by the laws