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Between the Dark and the Daylight by William Dean Howells
page 105 of 181 (58%)
Messenger brought it round the first thing Tuesday morning. He brought
it," Minver's brother added, with a certain effectiveness, "from the
florist's, where I had stopped to get those Mayflowers. I had left it
there."

"You've told it very well, this time, Joe," Minver said. "But Acton here
is waiting for the psychology. Poor old Wanhope ought to be here," he
added to me. He looked about for a match to light his pipe, and his
brother jerked his head in the direction of the chimney.

"Box on the mantel. Yes," he sighed, "that was really something very
curious. You see, I had invented the whole history of the case from the
time I got into the Back Bay car with my flowers. Absolutely nothing had
happened of all I had remembered till I got out of the car. I did not
put the picture beside me at the end of the car; I did not keep my hand
on it while I talked with General Filbert; I did not leave it behind me
when I left the car. Nothing of the kind happened. I had already left it
at the florist's, and that whole passage of experience which was so
vividly and circumstantially stamped in my memory that I related it four
or five times over, and would have made oath to every detail of it, was
pure invention, or, rather, it was something less positive: the reflex
of the first half of my horse-car experience, when I really did put the
picture in the corner next me, and did keep my hand on it."

"Very strange," I was beginning, but just then the door opened and Mrs.
Minver came in, and I was presented.

She gave me a distracted hand, as she said to her husband: "Have you
been telling the story about that picture again?" He was still holding
it. "Silly!"
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