“Then,” I tried plain common sense, “then, if you can reason, you must know that you didn’t fall through the earth. It would be impossible.”
“I know that. My reason tells me it’s impossible. But all I know about it is, that I did do it.”
“Through a long hole,—miles long?”
“Yes.”
“Who bored the hole?”
“It was there all the time. I suppose Nature made it.”
“Oh, a sort of rock fissure——”
“No; more like a mine,—a——”
“That’s it, old chap! You were a miner, and there was a cave-in, and it spoiled your thinker—temporarily.”
“But a mine doesn’t have an exit at the bottom of it. I tell you I was far away from where I fell in, and I came miles straight down through the solid earth——”