IN OCTOBER
on the threshold stood the Blue Serge Man—not dank and wet with slime and seaweed, but fat and ruddy and warm in a huge gray possum coat. Only the fearful, stilted immovability of him gave the lie to his reality.
It was a miracle! I had always wondered a great deal about miracles. I had always longed, craved, prayed to experience a miracle. I had always supposed that a miracle was the supreme sensation of existence, the ultimate rapture of the soul. But it seems I was mistaken. A miracle does n't do any thing to your soul for days and days and days. Your heart, of course, may jump, and your blood foam, but first of all it simply makes you very, very sick in the pit of your stomach. It made a man like Alrik clutch at his belt and jump up and down and "holler" like a lunatic. It smote the Partridge Hunter somevhere between a cramp and a sob. It ripped the Old Mother close at her waist-line, and raveled her out on the floor like a fluff of gray yarn.
But the Pretty Lady just stood up with her hands full of pop-corn, and stared and stared and stared and stared. From her shining blond head to her jet-black slippers she was like an exploded pulse.
The Blue Serge Man stepped forward into the room and faltered. In that instant's faltering,
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