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314 pies mind, or he might have stuck for a time at that "inadvertently willed," embracing, as it does, the abstrusest problems of voluntary action; but as it was, the idea came to him with a quite acceptable haziness. And from that, following, as I must ad- mit, no clear logical path, he came to the test of ex- periment. He pointed resolutely to his candle and collected his mind, though he felt he did a foolish thing. "Be raised up," he said. But in a second that feeling vanished. The candle was raised, bung in the air one giddy moment, and as Mr. Fotheringay gasped, fell with a smash on his toilet-table, leaving him in ■darkness save for the expiring glow of its wick. For a time Mi-. Fotheringay sat in the darkness, perfectly still. "It did happen, after all," he said. "And W I'm to explain it I don't know." He sighed heavily, and began feeling in his pockets for a match. He could find none, and he rose and groped about the toilet-table. "I wish I had a match," he said. He resorted to his coat, and there was none there, and then it dawned upon him that miracles were possible even with matches. He extended a hand and scowled at it in the dark. "Let there be a match in that hand," he said. He felt some light object fall across his palm and his fingers closed upon a match. After several ineffectual attempts to light this, he discovered it was a safety match. He threw it down, and then it occurred to him that he might have willed it lit. He did, and perceived it burning in the midat of his toilet-table mat. He caught it up hastily, and it went out. His perception of pos- sibilities enlarged, and he felt for and replaced the candle in its candlestick. "Here ! you be lit," said Mr. Fotheringay, and forthwith the candle was flar- ing, and he saw a little black hole in the toilet-cover, ■with a wisp of smoke rising from it. For a time he stared from this to the little flame and back, and then looked up and met his own gaze in the looking- giass. By this help he communed with himself in silence for a time. "How about miraeles now?" said Mr. Fotheringay at last, addressing his reflection. Mr. Fotheringay Practices Miracles Upon Himself With Great Success THE subsequent meditations of Mr. Fother- ingay were of a severe but confused descrip- tion. So far, he could see it was a case of pure willing with him. The nature of his experiences so far disinclined him for any further experi- ments, at least until he had reconsidered them. But he lifted a sheet of 'paper, and turned a glass of water pink and then green, and he created a snail, which be miraculously annihilated, and got him- self a miraculous new toothbrush. Somewhere in the small hours he had reached the fact that his will-power must be of a particularly rare and pungent quality, a fact of which he had indeed had inldings before, but no certain assurance. The scare and perplexity of his first discov- ery was now qualified by pride in this evidence of singularity and by vague intimations of advant- age. He became aware that the church clock was striking one, and as it did not occur to him that his daily duties at Gomshott's might be miraculously dispensed with, he resumed undressing, in order to get to bed without further delay. As he struggled to get his shirt over his head, he was struck with a brilliant idea. "Let me be in bed," he said, and found himself so. "Undressed," he stipulated; and finding the sheets cold,. added hastily, "and in my nightshirt — no, in a nice soft woolen nightshirt. Ah!" he said with immense enjoyment. "And now let me be comfortably asleep. . ." He awoke at his usual hour and was pensive all through breakfast-time, wondering whether his overnight experience might not be a particularly vivid dream. At length his mind turned again to cautious experiments. For instance, he had three eggs for breakfast; two his landlady had supplied, good, but shoppy, and one was a delicious fresh goose egg, laid, cooked, and served by his extra- ordinary will. He hurried off to Gomshott's in a state of profound but carefully concealed excite- ment, and only remembered the shell of the third egg when his landlady spoke of it that night. All day he could do no work because of this astonishing new self-knowledge, but this caused him no incon- venience, because he made up for it miracuously in his last ten minutes. CHAPTER III. More Miracles Astonishing the Natives AS the day wore on his state of mind passed from wonder to elation, albeit the circum- stances of his dismissal from the Long Dra- gon were still disagreeable to recall, and a garbled account of the matter that had reached his col- leagues led to some bandinage. It was evident he must he careful how he lifted frangible articles, but in other ways his gift promised more and more as he turned it over in his mind. He intended among other things to increase his personal prop- erty by unostentatious acts of creation. He called into existence a pair of very splendid diamond studs, and hastily annihilated them again as young Gomshott came across the counting-house to his desk. He was afraid young Gomshott might won- der how he had come by them. He saw quite clear- ly the gift required caution and watchfulness in its exercise, but so far as he could judge the difficulties attending its mastery would be no greater than those he had already faced in the study of cycling. . It was that analogy, perhaps, quite as much as the feeling that he would be unwelcome in the Long Dragon, that drove him out after supper into the lane beyond the gasworks, to rehearse a few mir- acles in private. There waa possibly a certain want of originality in his attempts, for, apart from his will-power, Mr. Fotheringay was not a very exceptional man. The miracle of Moses' rod came to his mind, but the/ night was dark and unfavourable to the proper eon- ■■[' trol of large miraculous snakes. Then he recol- lected the story of "Tannhauser" that he had read on the back of the Philharmonic programme. That seemed to him singularly attractive and harmless. He stuck his walking-stick— a very nice Poona- Penang lawyer—- into the turf that edged the foot- path, and commanded the dry wood to blossom. The air was immediately full of the scent of roses, and by means of a match he saw for himself that this beautiful miracle was indeed accomplished. His satisfaction was ended by advancing footsteps.