“I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Wingfield. “I’ve often tried. It’s perfectly magnificent!”
“I’ll avoid you in a fight,” observed Ralston, laughing.
Crowdie had looked on with curiosity, but he had watched Griggs’ face rather than his hands, comparing it with a picture of Samson pulling down the pillars, which rose in his memory. He came to the conclusion that the man who had painted the picture had never seen a great feat of strength.
“It looks so easy,” said Katharine. “But it must be awfully hard.”
“There’s a good story the peasants tell in Russia about Peter the Great,” said Griggs. “He was hunting. His horse lost a shoe, and he stopped at a wayside smith’s. The smith made a shoe while Peter waited. Peter took it, tried it in his hands, broke it and threw it into a corner, saying it was bad. The smith made another, and the Czar broke it again, and so on. But he could not break the tenth. The blacksmith asked a rouble for the shoe. Peter gave him one. He broke it in two and threw it into a corner, saying it was bad—and so he broke as many roubles as the Czar had broken shoes, and said that the tenth was good. Peter was so much pleased that he made the man a general—or something.”
“I suppose you could do that, too, couldn’t you?” asked Katharine, looking at the gaunt, grey man with a strong admiration.
“Oh, yes—I’ve done it. But it’s a strange thing, isn’t it, when you think that it’s all an illusion?”
“An illusion!” cried Wingfield, in disappointment. “What do you mean? It isn’t a trick, surely!”
“Oh, no! I don’t mean that. But all matter is an illusion, isn’t it? Nothing’s real that isn’t permanent.”
“But if matter isn’t permanent, what is?” asked Bright. “But I know—you have the most extraordinary ideas about those things.”