“So, while you feel repulsion,” he began, “and a sickened disgust at the sight of a spider, it is because the hereditary, subconscious memory knows that these creatures were once your lords in another existence and it commands you to obliterate this loathsome, alien life from another age. When you crushed that barn spider under your foot, you unconsciously took revenge for uncounted eras of oppression, which has made such a mark on the human brain that forever and ever most men will sicken at the sight of a spider.

“You are repelled without understanding the reason for your dislike, but I—I hate them, for I know what they are—a fact which no other man alive is certain of.

“All spiders that I come in contact with now are attracted to me. I enter a room, for instance: there is not the sign of a web about, my hostess would swear that the house is spotless, but if there is a spider it feels my presence somehow, and before I leave, I may find one perched upon my shoe, or near me, steadily gazing with its beady black eyes.

“I hate them, but I have not the fear, which you mistakenly call hatred. I am going to search for Carewe and we will search for that polar country where the brass-hued men lived, and may even find a frozen or fossil spider that will prove that I did not lie to my fellow scientists. But until that day, I tell my story to no more scoffers, nor should I have told you if I had not wished to see how a layman received the theory that all my contemporaries have rejected.”

“What, Boston so soon?” he ejaculated as we pulled into the North Station. “I hope I have not bored you.”

“Indeed, you have not, Mr. Pentreat,” I answered, with a smile. “I wish you good fortune in your search.” And I extended my hand.

“Thank you, I shall need it,” he said gruffly, and wringing my hand, he stepped into the crowd and I saw my last of the man with the beady eyes.

I shall, not include this in my novel, nor shall I change his version of affairs. It is an amazing theory at least, and if it were proved, it would cause havoc to cherished opinions, but if he goes to find his lost city in the North, he goes alone—for I read that Sir Adlington Carewe has disappeared into the jungles of Africa’s West Coast, and as his experiments dealt with great apes and lunatics, I do not think he will be back.

Well, you have read the story. I give you fair warning that I don’t believe it myself. His eyes were just a wee bit too bright!