"You do not," snapped the Lawyer. "You may know a story, but you never heard that one."
"All right," she admitted. "I am not going to add footnotes, don't be alarmed."
"You don't mean to say that is a true story?" ejaculated the Divorcée.
"As for me," said the Critic, "I don't believe it."
"No one asked you to," replied the Lawyer. "It is only another case of the Doctor's pet theory—that whatever the mind of mortal mind can conceive, can come to pass."
"I suppose also that it is a proof of another of his pet theories. Scratch civilized man, and you find the beast."
The Doctor was lying back in his chair. He never said a word. Somehow the story seemed a less suggestive topic of conversation than usual.
"The weather is going to change," said the Doctor. "There's rain in the air."
"Well, anyway," said the Journalist, as we gathered up our belongings and prepared to shut up for the night, "the Youngster's ghost story was a good night cap compared to that."
"Not a bit of it," said the Critic. "There's the foundation of a bully melodrama in that story, and I'm not sure that it isn't the best one yet—so full of reserves."