Chapters (25)
- FURTHER FOOLISHNESS
- *
- Contents
- Preface
- FOLLIES IN FICTION
- I - Stories Shorter Still
- II - Snoopopaths; or, Fifty Stories in One
- III - Foreign Fiction in Imported Instalments
- MOVIES AND MOTORS, MEN AND WOMEN
- IV - Madeline of the Movies: A Photoplay Done Back into Words
- V - The Call of the Carburettor, or, Mr. Blinks and His Friends
- VI - The Two Sexes in Fives or Sixes a Dinner-Party Study
- VII - The Grass Bachelor's Guide with Sincere Apologies to the Ladies' Periodicals
- VIII - Every Man and His Friends Mr. Crunch's Portrait Gallery
- IX - More than Twice-Told Tales; or, Every Man His Own Hero
- X - A Study in Still Life—My Tailor
- PEACE, WAR, AND POLITICS
- XI - Germany from Within Out
- XII - Abdul Aziz Has His
- XIII - In Merry Mexico
- XIV - Over the Grape Juice; or, the Peacemakers
- XV - The White House from Without In
- TIMID THOUGHTS ON TIMELY TOPICS
- XVI - Are the Rich Happy?
- XVII - Humour as I See It
Well, I'm not of a timorous disposition naturally—at least I don't think I am—but absolutely I felt as if I couldn't stay in the room. I got up out of my chair and walked down the stairs, in the dark, to the dining-room. I felt all the way as if some one were following me. Do you know, I was absolutely trembling when I got into the dining-room and got the lights turned on. I walked over to the sideboard and poured myself out a drink of whisky and soda. As you know, I never take anything as a rule —or, at any rate, only when I am sitting round talking as we are now—but I always like to keep a decanter of whisky in the house, and a little soda, in case of my wife or one of the children being taken ill in the night.
Well, I took a drink and then I said to myself, I said, "See here, I'm going to see this thing through." So I turned back and walked straight upstairs again to my room. I fully expected something queer was going to happen and was prepared for it. But do you know when I walked into the room again the feeling, or presentiment, or whatever it was I had had, was absolutely gone. There was my book lying just where I had left it and the reading lamp still burning on the table, just as it had been, and my chair just where I had pushed it back. But I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. I sat and waited awhile, but I still felt nothing.
I went downstairs again to put out the lights in the dining-room. I noticed as I passed the sideboard that I was still shaking a little. So I took a small drink of whisky—though as a rule I never care to take more than one drink—unless when I am sitting talking as we are here.
Well, I had hardly taken it when I felt an odd sort of psychic feeling—a sort of drowsiness. I remember, in a dim way, going to bed, and then I remember nothing till I woke up next morning.
And here's the strange part of it. I had hardly got down to the office after breakfast when I got a wire to tell me that my mother-in-law had broken her arm in Cincinnati. Strange, wasn't it? No, not at half-past two during that night—that's the inexplicable part of it. She had broken it at half-past eleven the morning before. But you notice it was half-past in each case. That's the queer way these things go.
Of course, I don't pretend to explain it. I suppose it simply means that I am telepathic—that's all. I imagine that, if I wanted to, I could talk with the dead and all that kind of thing. But I feel somehow that I don't want to.