dissolve upon the early applications of a humorous
thing; but the fifth time I told it, they began to crack in places;
the eight time I told it, they began to crumble; at the twelfth
repetition they fell apart in chunks; and at the fifteenth they
disintegrated, and I got a broom and swept them up. This language
is figurative. Those islanders--well, they are slow pay at first,
in the matter of return for your investment of effort, but in the end
they make the pay of all other nations poor and small by contrast.

I was at the well next day betimes. Merlin was there, enchanting
away like a beaver, but not raising the moisture. He was not in
a pleasant humor; and every time I hinted that perhaps this contract
was a shade too hefty for a novice he unlimbered his tongue and
cursed like a bishop--French bishop of the Regency days, I mean.

Matters were about as I expected to find them. The "fountain" was
an ordinary well, it had been dug in the ordinary way, and stoned up
in the ordinary way. There was no miracle about it. Even the lie
that had created its reputation was not miraculous; I could have
told it myself, with one hand tied behind me. The well was in a
dark chamber which stood in the center of a cut-stone chapel, whose
walls were hung with pious pictures of a workmanship that would
have made a chromo feel good; pictures historically commemorative
of curative miracles which had been achieved by the waters when
nobody was looking. That is, nobody but angels; they are always
on deck when there is a miracle to the fore--so as to get put in
the picture, perhaps. Angels are as fond of that as a fire company;
look at the old masters.

The well-chamber was dimly lighted by lamps; the water was drawn
with a windlass and chain by monks, and poured into troughs which
delivered it into stone reservoirs outside in the chapel--when
there was water to draw, I mean--and none but monks could enter
the well-chamber. I entered it, for I had temporary authority
to do so, by courtesy of my professional brother and subordinate.
But he hadn't entered it himself. He did everything by incantations;
he never worked his intellect. If he had stepped in there and used
his eyes, instead of his disordered mind, he could have cured
the well by natural means, and then turned it into a miracle in
the customary way; but no, he was an old numskull, a magician who
believed in his own magic; and no magician can thrive who is
handicapped