Well, sir, in about two minutes more, I had one of the burners fixed on to the light socket, and old Jones, with his coat off, boiling water in a tin cup (out of the store) and timing it with his watch.
The next day I pulled into Toledo and went and joined the other boys up to the Jefferson House. "Well," they says, "have you got that plaster on?" and started in to give me the ha! ha! again. "Oh, I don't know," I says. "I guess this is some plaster, isn't it?" and I took out of my pocket an order from old man Jones for two thousand adjustable burners, at four-twenty with two off. "Some plaster, eh?" I says.
Well, sir, the boys looked sick.
Old man Jones gets all his stuff from our house now. Oh, he ain't bad at all when you get to know him.
(II)
The well-known story told by the man who has once had a strange psychic experience.
...What you say about presentiments reminds me of a strange experience that I had myself.
I was sitting by myself one night very late, reading. I don't remember just what it was that I was reading. I think it was—or no, I don't remember what it was. Well, anyway, I was sitting up late reading quietly till it got pretty late on in the night. I don't remember just how late it was—half-past two, I think, or perhaps three—or, no, I don't remember. But, anyway, I was sitting up by myself very late reading. As I say, it was late, and, after all the noises in the street had stopped, the house somehow seemed to get awfully still and quiet. Well, all of a sudden I became aware of a sort of strange feeling—I hardly know how to describe it—I seemed to become aware of something, as if something were near me. I put down my book and looked around, but could see nothing. I started to read again, but I hadn't read more than a page, or say a page and a half—or no, not more than a page, when again all of a sudden I felt an overwhelming sense of—something. I can't explain just what the feeling was, but a queer sense as if there was something somewhere.
Well, I'm not of a timorous disposition naturally—at least I don't think I am—but absolutely I felt as if I couldn't stay in the room. I got up out of my chair and walked down the stairs, in the dark, to the dining-room. I felt all the way as if some one were following me. Do you know, I was absolutely trembling when I got into the dining-room and got the lights turned on. I walked over to the sideboard and poured myself out a drink of whisky and soda. As you know, I never take anything as a rule —or, at any rate, only when I am sitting round talking as we are now—but I always like to keep a decanter of whisky in the house, and a little soda, in case of my wife or one of the children being taken ill in the night.
Well, I took a drink and then I said to myself, I said, "See here, I'm going to see this thing through." So I turned back and walked straight upstairs again to my room. I fully expected something queer was going to happen and was prepared for it. But do you know when I walked into the room again the feeling, or presentiment, or whatever it was I had had, was absolutely gone. There was my book lying just where I had left it and the reading lamp still burning on the table, just as it had been, and my chair just where I had pushed it back. But I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. I sat and waited awhile, but I still felt nothing.