give the whole story, instead of
hinting at it, for a similar tale is told at Brazenose College, and
elsewhere. Now take, along with Dr. Holmes's confession to a grain of
superstition, this remark on, and explanation of, the curious
coincidences which thrust themselves on the notice of most people.

"Excuse me,--I return to my story of the Commonstable. Young fellows
being always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the meagre fare of the
evening meal, it was a trick of some of the boys to impale a slice of
meat upon a fork, at dinner-time, and stick the fork, holding it, beneath
the table, so that they could get it at tea-time. The dragons that
guarded this table of the Hesperides found out the trick at last, and
kept a sharp look-out for missing forks;--they knew where to find one, if
it was not in its place. Now the odd thing was, that, after waiting so
many years to hear of this College trick, I should hear it mentioned a
_second time_ within the same twenty-four hours by a College youth of the
present generation. Strange, but true. And so it has happened to me and
to every person, often and often, to be hit in rapid succession by these
twinned facts or thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot.

"I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder over this, taking it as
an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a furrow of
subsoil in it. The explanation is, of course, that in a great many
thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these instantly arrest our
attention. Now we shall probably never have the least idea of the
enormous number of impressions which pass through our consciousness,
until in some future life we see the photographic record of our thoughts
and the stereoscopic picture of our actions.

"Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your foreheads, and
saying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as if you had been
waltzing until things began to whirl slightly round you, is it possible
that you do not clearly apprehend the exact connection of all I have been
saying, and its bearing on what is now to come? Listen, then. The
number of these living elements in our bodies illustrates the
incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the number of our thoughts
accounts for those frequent coincidences spoken of; these coincidences in
the world of thought illustrate those which we constantly observe in the
world of outward events."

Now for the anecdote--o