nce to go on."

He asked me if I had ever made a study of palmistry. I said I had read
one of Desbarolles's books years ago, and one of Heron-Allen's. But,
he asked, had I tried to test them by the lines on my own hands or on
the hands of my friends? I confessed that my actual practice in
palmistry had been of a merely passive kind--the prompt extension of my
palm to any one who would be so good as to "read" it and truckle for a
few minutes to my egoism. (I hoped Laider might do this.)

"Then I almost wonder," he said, with his sad smile, "that you haven't
lost your belief, after all the nonsense you must have heard. There
are so many young girls who go in for palmistry. I am sure all the
five foolish virgins were 'awfully keen on it' and used to say, 'You
can be led, but not driven,' and, 'You are likely to have a serious
illness between the ages of forty and forty-five,' and, 'You are by
nature rather lazy, but can be very energetic by fits and starts.' And
most of the professionals, I'm told, are as silly as the young girls."

For the honor of the profession, I named three practitioners whom I had
found really good at reading character. He asked whether any of them
had been right about past events. I confessed that, as a matter of
fact, all three of them had been right in the main. This seemed to
amuse him. He asked whether any of them had predicted anything which
had since come true. I confessed that all three had predicted that I
should do several things which I had since done rather unexpectedly.
He asked if I didn't accept this as, at any rate, a scrap of evidence.
I said I could only regard it as a fluke--a rather remarkable fluke.

The superiority of his sad smile was beginning to get on my nerves. I
wanted him to see that he was as absurd as I.

"Suppose," I said--"suppose, for the sake of argument, that you and I
are nothing but helpless automata created to do just this and that, and
to have just that and this done to us. Suppose, in fact, we HAVEN'T
any free will whatsoever. Is it likely or conceivable that the Power
which fashioned us would take the trouble to jot down in cipher on our
hands just what was in store for us?"

Laider did not answer this question; he did but annoyingly ask me
another.

"You believe in free will?"

"Yes, of course. I'll be hanged if I'm an automaton."

"And you believe in free will just as in palmistry--without any reason?"

"Oh, no. Everything points