"Boys," he said, "forgive me if I am dazed, and don't be insulted. I
recall that Entedius prefaced his narrative with an oath to its veracity.
I am ready to believe all this if he reaffirms it. But I have a horrible
feeling that you farmers think you have caught a city ignoramus and that
it is your duty to stuff me with the tallest stories you can invent.
Please set me right. If you are stuffing me the joke is certainly on me,
for these incredible tales seem true: if they are true the joke is doubly
on me. As I am the butt, either way, don't be too hard on me: Please set
me right."

They chorused at him that they had all heard the story, most of them soon
after the marvel took place; that they had always believed it, and
believed it then. I corroborated Hirnio's exactitude as to all the
details.




CHAPTER IV

HOROSCOPES AND MARVELS


Tanno looked about again, less wildly, but still like a man in a daze.

"But," he cried, "if you do such wonders, how do you do them, Caius?"

"I don't know now," I said, "any more than I knew the first time I gentled
a fierce strange dog. It came natural then, it always has come natural."