than once I caught myself wondering whether Nupton, that babe unborn,
were going to be right in thinking him a figment of my brain.

In that extract from Nupton's repulsive book there is one point
which perhaps puzzles you. How is it that the author, though I have here
mentioned him by name and have quoted the exact words he is going to
write, is not going to grasp the obvious corollary that I have invented
nothing? The answer can be only this: Nupton will not have read the
later passages of this memoir. Such lack of thoroughness is a serious
fault in any one who undertakes to do scholar's work. And I hope these
words will meet the eye of some contemporary rival to Nupton and be the
undoing of Nupton.

I like to think that some time between 1992 and 1997 somebody
will have looked up this memoir, and will have forced on the world his
inevitable and startling conclusions. And I have reason for believing that
this will be so. You realize that the reading-room into which Soames
was projected by the devil was in all respects precisely as it will be on the
afternoon of June 3, 1997. You realize, therefore, that on that afternoon,
when it comes round, there the selfsame crowd will be, and there Soames
will be, punctually, he and they doing precisely what they did before.
Recall now Soames's account of the sensation he made. You may say
that the mere difference of his costume was enough to make him
sensational in that uniformed crowd. You wouldn't say so if you had
ever seen him, and I assure you that in no period would Soames be
anything but dim. The fact that people are going to stare at him
and follow him around and seem afraid of him, can be explained only on
the hypothesis that they will somehow have been prepared for his ghostly
visitation. They will have been awfully waiting to see whether he really
would come. And when he does come the effect will of course