This took place in 1875. It was the height of the summer. I do not
remember whether it was Saint James's day or Saint Louis's; I am inclined
to think it was Saint Louis's. Whichever it was, we enjoyed a delicious
coolness at that height, and the heart and brain, as well as the stomach,
were there in much better working order than usual.

When the six friends were seated, Gabriel continued as follows:

"I do not think you will accuse me of being a visionary. Luckily or
unluckily, I am, if you will allow me to say so, a man of the modern
world. I have no superstition about me, and am as much of a Positivist as
the best of them, although I include among the positive data of nature all
the mysterious faculties and feelings of the soul. Well, then, apropos of
supernatural, or extra-natural, phenomena, listen to what I have seen and
heard, although I was not the real hero of the very strange story I am
going to relate, and then tell me what explanation of an earthly,
physical, or natural sort, however you may name it, can be given of so
wonderful an occurrence.

"The case was as follows. But wait! Pour me out a drop, for the
skin-bottle must have got cooled off by this time in that bubbling,
crystalline spring, located by Providence on this piny crest for the
express purpose of cooling a botanist's wine."


II.

Well, gentlemen, I do not know whether you ever heard of an engineer of
the roads corps named Telesforo X---; he died in 1860."