“I mean to say that you have been sitting down there on that bank holding that piece of stick with the blurred keel marks on it, just long enough for me to walk to that rock yonder dip up a bucket of water and walk back. Here, time me with your watch and I will show you how long it took.”
Whereupon he threw away the water in his bucket, walked to the rock, refilled it and walked back—in one minute and forty seconds! Thus may one get an idea of the quickness of thought. I had heard of it before, but never realized it so completely.
As we went on with our preparations for our dinner I gave Allan some further account of what I seemed to have heard and seen, and he became quite interested in it.
“I think,” said he, “you ought to write it down, and do it at once before you forget it. You had better go right back to your cottage at the other end of the lake. I’ll go with you, perhaps I can help you. I can write while you dictate.”
I thought myself, I ought to write it down, and was pleased that he made the suggestion. It was soon arranged. After dinner we piled our things in the Sally Ann and were soon under way. Instead of rowing back to the outlet of Halsteds Bay, we steered for a narrow depression in the long point of land that separates the Bay from the upper lake. At this place which is only a few yards wide, we made a portage by dragging the boat over by main strength, and in a minute were in the lake, and just in time to hail a little steamer on its way down. They threw us a line which we made fast to the Sally Ann, and were thus towed back to Excelsior. Here Allan left me to go and settle his board bill and get his things, with the understanding that he would come over to my cottage next morning, while the steamer pursued her way toward the St. Louis hotel. Opposite Cottagewood I threw off the line and in a few minutes was back in my cottage. This terminated the cruise of the Sally Ann.
That night I dreamed over the entire interview with the Professor, I believe verbatim.
Next morning a messenger came with a note from Allan saying that he had found awaiting him a telegram from a favorite niece demanding his presence at her wedding due to come off at St. Louis at a time that required his immediate departure. This he considered imperative and he had accordingly started the night before. He would try and come back after the wedding was over, he said.
I began to write up the “interview” that day, and that night I dreamed it all over again. It seemed to be now well fixed in my mind and I wrote rapidly. A week later I got another note from Allan. Business had claimed him again and he regretted that he would have to forego any further outing till next season. I have never heard from him since.
I wrote vigorously on the interview, and finished it in two weeks. I was very tired and glad to get back to the city and to work so as to rest up from the fatigues of my outing.