“That he was lying, I should say,” Rulledge replied for the stranger.
Wanhope still waited, and the stranger said, “I suppose one conclusion might be that I had dreamed the whole thing myself.”
“Then you wish me to infer,” the psychologist pursued, “that the entire incident was a figment of your sleeping brain? That there was no sort of sleeping thought-transference, no metaphantasmia, no— Excuse me. Do you remember verifying your impression of being between Worcester and Springfield when the affair occurred, by looking at your watch, for instance?”
The stranger suddenly pulled out his watch at the word. “Good Heavens!” he called out. “It’s twenty minutes of eleven, and I have to take the eleven-o’clock train to Boston. I must bid you good-evening, gentlemen. I’ve just time to get it if I can catch a cab. Good-night. I hope if you come to Boston—eh—Good-night! Sometimes,” he called over his shoulder, “I’ve thought it might have been that girl in the stateroom that started the dreaming.”
He had wrung our hands one after another, and now he ran out of the room.
VIII
THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT
By Bret Harte
From “Luck of Roaring Camp,” copyright, 1915, by Houghton Mifflin Company. By special permission from the publishers.
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.
Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause, was another question. “I reckon they’re after somebody,” he reflected; “likely it’s me.” He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.