Page:Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and other profitable tales, 1915.djvu/145



E were finishing our dinner. at the tavern when Laboullée said to me:

"I admit that second-sight, hypnotic suggestion from a distance, presentiments subsequently fulfilled, all those phenomena dependent on a condition of the organism at present ill-defined, are not for the most part proved in such a manner as to satisfy the demands of scientific criticism. They nearly all rest on evidence which, though genuine, permits of some uncertainty as to the nature of the phenomena. That the facts about them are vague, I admit. But that they are possible I cannot doubt since I myself have witnessed one. By a happy chance I was myself enabled to make the minutest scrutiny. You may believe me when I tell you that I proceeded methodically and that I was careful to eliminate every possibility of error."

As he uttered this sentence, the young doctor with both hands smote his hollow chest padded with Rh