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Chapters (25)
  1. FURTHER FOOLISHNESS
  2. *
  3. Contents
  4. Preface
  5. FOLLIES IN FICTION
  6. I - Stories Shorter Still
  7. II - Snoopopaths; or, Fifty Stories in One
  8. III - Foreign Fiction in Imported Instalments
  9. MOVIES AND MOTORS, MEN AND WOMEN
  10. IV - Madeline of the Movies: A Photoplay Done Back into Words
  11. V - The Call of the Carburettor, or, Mr. Blinks and His Friends
  12. VI - The Two Sexes in Fives or Sixes a Dinner-Party Study
  13. VII - The Grass Bachelor's Guide with Sincere Apologies to the Ladies' Periodicals
  14. VIII - Every Man and His Friends Mr. Crunch's Portrait Gallery
  15. IX - More than Twice-Told Tales; or, Every Man His Own Hero
  16. X - A Study in Still Life—My Tailor
  17. PEACE, WAR, AND POLITICS
  18. XI - Germany from Within Out
  19. XII - Abdul Aziz Has His
  20. XIII - In Merry Mexico
  21. XIV - Over the Grape Juice; or, the Peacemakers
  22. XV - The White House from Without In
  23. TIMID THOUGHTS ON TIMELY TOPICS
  24. XVI - Are the Rich Happy?
  25. XVII - Humour as I See It

Well, sir, in about two minutes more, I had one of the burners fixed on to the light socket, and old Jones, with his coat off, boiling water in a tin cup (out of the store) and timing it with his watch.

The next day I pulled into Toledo and went and joined the other boys up to the Jefferson House. "Well," they says, "have you got that plaster on?" and started in to give me the ha! ha! again. "Oh, I don't know," I says. "I guess this is some plaster, isn't it?" and I took out of my pocket an order from old man Jones for two thousand adjustable burners, at four-twenty with two off. "Some plaster, eh?" I says.

Well, sir, the boys looked sick.

Old man Jones gets all his stuff from our house now. Oh, he ain't bad at all when you get to know him.

II

The well-known story told by the man who has once had a strange psychic experience.

...What you say about presentiments reminds me of a strange experience that I had myself.

I was sitting by myself one night very late, reading. I don't remember just what it was that I was reading. I think it was—or no, I don't remember what it was. Well, anyway, I was sitting up late reading quietly till it got pretty late on in the night. I don't remember just how late it was—half-past two, I think, or perhaps three—or, no, I don't remember. But, anyway, I was sitting up by myself very late reading. As I say, it was late, and, after all the noises in the street had stopped, the house somehow seemed to get awfully still and quiet. Well, all of a sudden I became aware of a sort of strange feeling—I hardly know how to describe it—I seemed to become aware of something, as if something were near me. I put down my book and looked around, but could see nothing. I started to read again, but I hadn't read more than a page, or say a page and a half—or no, not more than a page, when again all of a sudden I felt an overwhelming sense of—something. I can't explain just what the feeling was, but a queer sense as if there was something somewhere.