had described. But this was a much more startling plunge into the past.
Was it possible that he had skipped half a dozen lives and was then dimly
remembering some episode of a thousand years later? It was a maddening
jumble, and the worst of it was that Charlie Mears in his normal condition
was the last person in the world to clear it up. I could only wait and
watch, but I went to bed that night full of the wildest imaginings. There
was nothing that was not possible if Charlie's detestable memory only held
good.

I might rewrite the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne as it had never been written
before, might tell the story of the first discovery of America, myself the
discoverer. But I was entirely at Charlie's mercy, and so long as there
was a three-and-six-penny Bohn volume within his reach Charlie would not
tell. I dared not curse him openly; I hardly dared jog his memory, for I
was dealing with the experiences of a thousand years ago, told through the
mouth of a boy of to-day; and a boy of to-day is affected by every change
of tone and gust of opinion, so that he lies even when he desires to speak
the truth.

I saw no more of him for nearly a week. When next I met him it was in
Gracechurch Street with a billhook chained to his waist. Business took him
over London Bridge and I accompanied him. He was very full of the
importance of that book and magnified it. As we passed over the Thames we
paused to look at a steamer unloading great slabs of white and brown
marble. A barge drifted under the steamer's stern and a lonely cow in that
barge bellowed. Charlie's face changed from the face of the bank-clerk to
that of an unknown and--though he would not have believed this--a much
shrewder man. He flung out his arm across the parapet of the bridge and
laughing very loudly, said: