The white-haired reader, in whom I had now become deeply interested, no longer an unwelcome stranger, suspended his reading, laid down his manuscript, and looking me in the face, asked:

"Are you a believer?"

"No," I promptly answered.

"What part of the narrative do you question?"

"All of it."

"Have you not already investigated some of the statements I previously made?" he queried.

"Yes," I said; "but you had not then given utterance to such preposterous expressions."

"Is not the truth, the truth?" he answered.

"You ask me to believe impossibilities," I replied.

"Name one."