"I don't know," said Laurie; "I must think...."
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?"
"Oh, I daresay. But wouldn't you ask yet another after that?"
"I don't know."
"Or wouldn't you think you'd been hypnotized?"
Laurie shook his head.
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