MARK TWAIN
and leave nothing behind it but a vacant lot. I was unspeakably delighted. I had seen an appari tion at last, with my own eyes, in broad daylight. I made up my mind to write an account of it to the society. I ran to where the specter had been, to make sure he was playing fair, then I ran to the other end of the porch, scanning the open grounds as I went. No, everything was perfect; he couldn t have escaped without my seeing him; he was an apparition, without the slightest doubt, and I would write him up before he was cold. I ran, hot with excitement, and let myself in with a latch-key. When I stepped into the hall my lungs collapsed and my heart stood still. For there sat that same appa rition in a chair all alone, and as quiet and reposeful as if he had come to stay a year! The shock kept me dumb for a moment or two then I said, "Did you come in at that door?" "Yes."
"Did you open it, or did you ring?"
"I rang, and the colored man opened it."
I said to myself: "This is astonishing. It takes
George all of two minutes to answer the door-bell
when he is in a hurry, and I have never seen him in a
hurry. How did this man stand two minutes at that
door, within five steps of me, and I did not see him?"
I should have gone to my grave puzzling over that
riddle but for that lady s chance question last week :
"Have you ever had a vision when awake?" It
stands explained now. During at least sixty seconds
that day I was asleep, or at least totally unconscious,
without suspecting it. In that interval the man
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