._] I think you are something like a great man.
Can I take your explanation to him now?

CONJURER. [_Grimly._] No thank you. I will take it myself.

[_Exit into the other room._

DUKE. [_Uneasily._] We all felt devilish queer just now. Wonderful
things there are in the world. [_After a pause._] I suppose it's all
electricity.

[_Silence as usual._

SMITH. I think there has been more than electricity in all this.

_Enter_ PATRICIA, _still pale, but radiant._

PATRICIA. Oh, Morris is ever so much better! The Conjurer has told him
such a good story of how the trick was done.

_Enter_ CONJURER.

DUKE. Professor, we owe you a thousand thanks!

DOCTOR. Really, you have doubled your claim to originality!

SMITH. It is much more marvellous to explain a miracle than to work a
miracle. What was your explanation, by the way?

CONJURER. I shall not tell you.

SMITH. [_Starting._] Indeed? Why not?

CONJURER. Because God and the demons and that Immortal Mystery that you
deny has been in this room to-night. Because you know it has been here.
Because you have felt it here. Because you know the spirits as well as I
do and fear them as much as I do.

SMITH. Well?

CONJURER. Because all this would not avail. If I told you the lie I told
Morris Carleon about how I did that trick....

SMITH. Well?

CONJURER. YOU would believe it as he believed it. You cannot think
[_pointing to the lamp_] how that trick could be done naturally. I alone
found out how it could be done--after I had done it by magic. But if I
tell you a natural way of doing it....

SMITH. Well?...

CONJURER. Half an hour after I have left this house you will be all
saying how it was done.

[CONJURER _buttons up his cloak and advances to_ PATRICIA.

CONJURER. Good-bye.

PATRICIA. I shall not say good-bye.

PATRICIA. Yes. That fairy tale has really and truly come to an end.
[_Looks at him a little in the old mystical manner._] It is very hard
for a fairy tale to come to an end. If you leave it alone it lingers
everlastingly. Our fairy tale has come to an end in the only way a fairy
tale can come to an end. The only way a fairy tale can leave off being a
fairy tale.

CONJURER. I don't understand you.

PATRICIA. It has come true.

CURTAIN

* * * * *

_A Selection from the
Catalogue of_

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

[Illustration: Publisher's Mark]

Complete Catalogue sent