to shoulder it heretofore if it could be
introduced into real life."

Rulledge fetched a long, simple-hearted sigh. "Well, it's a charming
story. How well he told it!"

The waiter came again, and this time signalled to Minver.

"Yes," he said, as he rose. "What a pity you can't believe a word Halson
says."

"Do you mean--" we began simultaneously.

"That he built the whole thing from the ground up, with the start that
we had given him. Why, you poor things! Who could have told him how it
all happened? Braybridge? Or the girl? As Wanhope began by saying,
people don't speak of their love-making, even when they distinctly
remember it."

"Yes, but see here, Minver!" Rulledge said, with a dazed look. "If it's
all a fake of his, how came _you_ to have heard of Braybridge paddling
the canoe back for her?"

"That was the fake that tested the fake. When he adopted it, I _knew_ he
was lying, because I was lying myself. And then the cheapness of the
whole thing! I wonder that didn't strike you. It's the stuff that a
thousand summer-girl stories have been spun out of. Acton might have
thought he was writing it!"

He went away, leaving us to a blank silence, till Wanhope managed to
say: "That inventive habit of mind is very curious. It would be
interesting to know just how far it imposes on the inventor himself--how
much he believes of his own fiction."

"I don't see," Rulledge said, gloomily, "why they're so long with my
dinner." Then he burst out: "I believe every word Halson said! If
there's any fake in the thing, it's the fake that Minver owned to."

VII

THE CHICK OF THE EASTER EGG

The old fellow who told that story of dream-transference on a
sleeping-car at Christmas-time was again at the club on Easter Eve.
Halson had put him up for the winter, under the easy rule we had, and he
had taken very naturally to the Turkish room for his after-dinner coffee
and cigar. We all rather liked him, though it was Minver's pose to be
critical of the simple friendliness with which he made himself at home
among us, and to feign a wish that there were fewer trains between
Boston and New York, so that old Newton (that was his name) could have a
better chance of staying away. But we noticed that Minver was always a
willing listener to Newton's talk, and that he sometimes hospitably
offered to share his tobacco with the Bostonian. When brought to book
for his inconsistency by Rulledge, he said he was merely welcoming the