He got up.

"Look here, Mr. Vincent," he said, "it seems to me you're extraordinarily—er—extraordinarily plausible. But I'm even now not quite sure whether I'm not going mad. It's like a perfectly mad dream—all these things one on the top of the other."

He paused, looking sharply at the elder man, and away again.

"Yes?"

Laurie began to finger a pencil that lay on the chimney-shelf.

"You see what I mean, don't you?" he said. "I'm not disputing—er—your point of view, nor your sincerity. But I do wish you would give me another proof or two."

"You haven't had enough?"

"Oh! I suppose I have—if I were reasonable. But, you know, it all seems to me as if you suddenly demonstrated to me that twice two made five."

"But then, surely no proof—"

"Yes; I know. I quite see that. Yet I want one—something quite absolutely ordinary. If you can do all these things—spirits and all the rest—can't you do something ever so much simpler, that's beyond mistake?"