Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/197

Rh my length without breadth visitor, whom I had interrupted in his pseudo service, and who had dropped out of my office window with my God of Fortune in his hand. Although I made no reference to that occurrence, I was none the less struck by the fashion in which he had chosen to introduce himself to the niece of Mr. Benjamin Batters. The singularity of the thing went further. When the doll was slipped into the lady’s hand it was cased in a piece of paper, as it was when it was slipped into mine, from, which, again exactly as had happened with me, it forced itself apparently of its own volition.

I made no comment, but, with Miss Blyth’s permission, I put the doll into my waistcoat pocket; concluding that it might prove worthy of more minute examination than I had yet bestowed on it—even to the breaking of it open to discover “the works.”

This is a sober chronicle. I trust I am a sober chronicler. I wish to set down nothing which suggests the marvellous. I have an inherent dislike to wonders, being without faith. When men speak of the inexplicable I think of trickery, and of some quality which is not perception. Therefore I desire it to be understood that the following lines are written without prejudice; and that of what happened there may be a perfectly simple explanation which escaped my notice.

I trust that there is.

I had read the missionary’s letter, and the will, and had handed to Miss Blyth the sealed enclosure. When she opened it she found that within the packet was a little wooden box. On lifting the lid of this box, the first thing she saw—which we all saw—was my God of Fortune, or its double. It was just inside the box, staring at her, as it lay face upwards. Feeling in my waistcoat pocket for the duplicate, I found that it had gone. It had, apparently, passed into that wooden box, which had, until that moment, remained